Poetry

• The Blood of the Parade (1967)
• Coyote Tantras (1973)
• Persimmons: Poems for Paintings (1976)
• The Boy You Have Always Loved (1976)
• A Quinzaine in Return for a Portrait of Mary Sun (1977)
• Lives of the French Impressionist Painters (1978)
• Horse Hauling Timber out of Hokkaido Forest (1979)
• Beautiful Phantoms: Selected Poems 1968-1980 (1981)
• Giotto's Circle (1987)
• Ghosts No Horse Can Carry: Collected Poems 1967-1987 (1989)
• Flaubert at Key West (1994)
• Replies to Wang Wei

Essaies and Short Stories

• A Boy's Novel (1973)
• Kerouac's Town, photographs by Marshall Clements (1973)
• Francis Goes to the Seashore (1982)
• The Devil Thumbs a Ride and Other Unforgettable Films (1988)
• New Mysteries of Paris (1991)
• Night People (1992)
• American Falls: The Collected Short Stories
• Do the Blind Dream? (2005)

Non-fiction

• Jack's Book: An Oral Biography of Jack Kerouac, with Lawrence Lee (1978)
• Saroyan: A Biography, with Lawrence Lee (1984)
• Day at the Races: The Education of a Racetracker
• The Devil Thimbs a Ride & Other Unforgettable Films
• The Neighborhood of Baseball: A Personal History of the Chicago Cubs
• Really the Blues (introduction)
• The Phantom Father: A Memoir
• Out of the Past: Adventures in Film Noir

Novels and Novellas

• Landscape With Traveler: The Pillow Book of Francis Reeves (1980)
• Port Tropique (1980)
• Unfortunate Woman (1983)
• The Story of Sailor and Lula (1990) - Part 1 in the Sailor and Lula series
• Sailor's Holiday: The Wild Life of Sailor and Lula (1991) - Part 2 in the Sailor and Lula series
• 59° and Raining: The Story of Perdita Durango (1992) - Part 3 in the Sailor and Lula series
• A Good Man to Know: A Semi-Documentary Fictional Memoir (1992)
• Arise and Walk (1995)
• Baby Cat-Face (1995) - Sailor and Lula make a brief appearance
• Sultans of Africa - Part 4 in the Sailor and Lula series
• Consuelo's Kiss - Part 5 in the Sailor and Lula series
• The Sinaloa Story (1998)
• Wyoming (2000)
• Bad Day for the Leopard Man - Part 6 in the Sailor and Lula series
• The Stars Above Veracruz (2006)
• Imagination of the Heart (2007) - Part 7 in the Sailor and Lula series
• Memories from a Sinking Ship (2007)
• Sailor & Lula: The Complete Novels (2010)
• Sad Stories of the Death of Kings (2010)

Graphic Novels

• Perdita Durango (1995)

Other works

• Read 'em and Weep
• Back in America
• Bordertown (2002)
• My Last Martini
• The Rooster Trapped in the Reptile Room: A Barry Gifford Reader
• Rosa Blanca

• Wild at Heart (novel only) (1990)
• Hotel Room (screenplay, episodes "Blackout" and "Tricks") (1993)
• Lost Highway (screenplay, with David Lynch) (1997)
• Perdita Durango (screenplay, with David Trueba, Álex de la Iglesia, and Jorge Guerricaechevarría) (1997)