After a stint as a film reviewer, Joe Dante began his filmmaking apprenticeship in 1974 as trailer editor for Roger Corman's New World Pictures. He made his directorial debut in 1976 with Hollywood Boulevard (co-directed with Allan Arkush), a thinly disguised spoof of New World exploitation pictures, shot in ten days for $60,000.

In 1977 Dante made his solo debut as a film director with Piranha, which went on to become one of the company's biggest hits. During his tenure at New World, Dante edited Ron Howard's directorial debut Grand Theft Auto (1977) and co-wrote the original story for Rock n Roll High School (1979).

For Avco-Embassy, Dante next directed the highly praised werewolf thriller The Howling (1981), followed by the It’s a Good Life segment of the episodic Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983).

Then Spielberg chose him to helm the first Amblin production for Warner Bros. That film, Gremlins (1984) became a runaway hit and grossed more than $200 million worldwide.

Dante followed up with Explorers (1985) for Paramount, a sci-fi fantasy about three kids who build their own spaceship, and then Innerspace (1987) for Guber/Peters, Amblin and Warner Bros., an Oscar-winning (for special effects) comedy in which miniaturized test pilot Dennis Quaid is injected into the body of supermarket clerk Martin Short.

Dante then directed Tom Hanks in The Burbs (1989) which was followed by Gremlins 2:  The New Batch for Warner Bros. in 1990. Matinee (1993) featuring John Goodman as a huckster showman premiering his new horror film during the Cuban missile crisis, was Dante’s next production. Dante also directed one of his favorite actors, Bugs Bunny, in Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003).

Along the way Dante contributed several comedy segments to the multi-part Amazon Women on the Moon (1987) spoof produced by John Landis, and directed various episodes of the TV series Amazing Stories, Twilight Zone, Police Squad!, Night Visions and Picture Windows. He also directed the network pilots for Caleb Carr's The Osiris Chronicles (1995) and the NBC series Eerie, Indiana, on which he was creative consultant throughout its run.

Dante’s Homecoming, an episode of Showtime’s Masters of Horror series, debuted in December 2005 to rave reviews from critics and audiences alike and was named to numerous “Top 10” critics’ lists. The Sitges and Brussels International Film Festivals both honored Homecoming with Special Jury Recognition Awards, and the New Yorker called it the best political film of 2005. Additional television work includes The Screwfly Solution, also an episode of Masters of Horror, as well as episodes of CSI: New York, Hawaii 5-0, Salem and Witches of East End.