One of Carlino's earliest works was a play, The Brick and the Rose; a collage for voices. It was published on December 12, 1957, and the first production took place that year in the Ivar Theatre, now part of the LA Film School, in Hollywood, California.

The script for The Brick and the Rose was distributed by the Dramatists Play Service beginning in 1959 and the play was presented on television as part of the CBS Repertoire Workshop on January 24, 1960.

Carlino continued to write for theater with some success with scripts regularly published by Dramatists Play Service and numerous performances in several venues including the American National Theatre and Academy and the John Golden Theatre.

Carlino's first screenwriting credit was And Make Thunder His Tribute, Episode 99 of the television series Route 66, which aired on November 1, 1963, and starred Martin Milner and Glenn Corbett.

The following year, Carlino was asked to write the screenplay for Seconds, based on the novel by the Science Fiction writer David Ely. This conspiracy thriller directed by John Frankenheimer gained considerable attention as the final part of a loosely-connected paranoia trilogy. The film, in which John Randolph and Rock Hudson portrayed the same character before and after extensive plastic surgery and psychoanalysis, was submitted in competition at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival.

Carlino's next worked with Howard Koch on the adaptation of the 1923 novella The Fox by D. H. Lawrence. The film starring Sandy Dennis and Anne Heywood won a Best Foreign Film Golden Globe Award and Anne Heywood earned the Best Actress award. The screenplay by Carlino and Koch was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay of 1967.

The following year, Carlino was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award for the Best Written American Original Screenplay of 1968 for his work on The Brotherhood which starred Kirk Douglas and was directed by Martin Ritt.

Carlino wrote the original story and the screenplay for the 1972 film, The Mechanic, which stars Charles Bronson and Jan-Michael Vincent. The film is noted for opening with no dialog for the first 16 minutes and for its surprise ending. It was announced on May 7, 2009, that director Simon West will remake the movie with Jason Statham in the lead role.

Carlino and Gavin Lambert received an Oscar nomination and the Writers Guild of America Award nomination for the Best Adapted Screenplay of 1977 for I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. The film also received the nomination for the Golden Globe for Best Picture and Kathleen Quinlan received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress.

In 1980, Carlino did the original writing and screenplay for Resurrection and was nominated by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films for the Saturn Award for Best Writing of 1980. The film, directed by Daniel Petrie was also nominated for two Academy Awards; one for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Ellen Burstyn) and another for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Eva LeGallienne).

In 1976, Carlino adapted Yukio Mishima's 1963 novel The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea for the screen and directed the film of the same title which starred Kris Kristofferson and Sarah Miles.

The script for The Great Santini was adapted by Carlino from the 1976 novel by Pat Conroy, with assistance from an un-credited Herman Raucher. Carlino was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award of 1979 for the Best Drama Adapted from Another Medium. He directed the film which tells the story of a United States Marine Corps Officer whose success as a military aviator contrasts with his shortcomings as a husband and father. The film stars Robert Duvall, Blythe Danner, Michael O'Keefe, Lisa Jane Persky, Julie Anne Haddock, Brian Andrews, Stan Shaw and David Keith.

The Great Santini received two Academy Award nominations: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Duvall) and Best Actor in a Supporting Role (O'Keefe). Robert Duvall received the Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor and Michael O'Keefe was nominated for the Golden Globe for New Star of the Year.

In 1983, Carlino directed the film, Class with Jacqueline Bisset, Rob Lowe and Cliff Robertson and features the film debuts of Andrew McCarthy, John Cusack, Virginia Madsen, Lolita Davidovich, and Alan Ruck.