When I began to think about the head of the family, the storyteller, the rise of television which became the new storyteller, the break-up of the American family as an idea and then Avalon came.

(Levinson appeared in a cameo as a doctor. He has a television production company with Tom Fontana (The Levinson/Fontana Company) and served as executive producer for a number of series including Homicide: Life on the Street (which ran on NBC from 1993–1999) and the HBO prison drama Oz. Diner was the first of a series of films set in the Baltimore of Levinson's youth.

His most notable films include The Natural Good Morning Vietnam Rain Man Bugsy and Bandits.