For his film Mýrin (Jar City), he won the Crystal Globe award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2007. In December 2011, it was announced the production of a drama film Rocketman with Baltasar Kormákur and Dagur Kári was set to direct the film. His 2012 film The Deep was selected as the Icelandic entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards, making the January shortlist. In January 2013, it was again announced that the film will be produced by Kormákur with his partner Agnes Johansen. Denmark’s Nimbus Film will co-produce the film. The film’s production started in February and will be filmed until the end of 2013, with an expected release in 2015. In February 2015, it was announced that his next film would be the crime-thriller The Oath, which is based on a script by actor Ólafur Egilsson.

In May 2020, Kormakur restarted production of a Netflix science fiction series “Katla” after a several weeks hiatus due to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to protect the crew from the virus, several protocols were established, including color-coded armbands, daily temperature checks, catered boxed meals, hourly surface disinfection, and gloves on the make-up artists and production designers. Two crew members with elevated temperatures ended up testing positive for COVID-19. They were isolated for 14 days, and no one else became infected.