Ashim Ahluwalia studied film at Bard College, New York. His directorial debut, John & Jane (2005), premiered at the Toronto and Berlin Film Festivals in 2006. It was the first Indian film to be released theatrically by HBO Films. His second feature, Miss Lovely (2012), had its world premiere in the official selection of the Cannes Film Festival. His third film, the true-life crime saga Daddy (2017) opened on 2000 screens worldwide on Sept 8th, 2017.

His short film Events in a Cloud Chamber (2016) made on Super 8 with famed Indian modernist painter Akbar Padamsee premiered at the 73rd Venice Film Festival in the Classics section and has gone on to show at the BFI London Film Festival and at the Museum of Modern Art in New Directors/ New Films.

Ahluwalia was one of 8 international filmmakers to direct a segment in the folk horror anthology, The Field Guide to Evil (2018), which premiered at South by Southwest (SXSW) on March 16th, 2018, and opened theatrically in the US (distributed by Neon).

In May 2013, he received the Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters from Bard College. The award is "given in recognition of a significant contribution to artistic or literary heritage." During the same year, he was selected to be on the Jury of the 8th edition of the Rome Film Festival.

Ahluwalia is the only Indian director to have had his work premiere in the official selections of the Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Toronto and SXSW film festivals. Sight and Sound's Jonathan Romney has described Ahluwalia as "a very impressive talent".

He was named "one of the ten best-emerging film directors working today" by Phaidon Press in "Take 100: The Future of Film."

Ahluwalia's latest project is the 8-episode series CLA$$, produced for Netflix, and set in an ultra-wealthy high school in New Delhi. It was released in February 2023 and was rated the No 1 show in over 22 countries.