Hector Galán has been producing and directing critically-acclaimed documentary films for almost forty years, including eleven films for the provocative PBS series FRONTLINE, two films for The American Experience- Los Mineros and The Hunt for Pancho Villa- the six -part series Visiones Latino Art and Culture, and the landmark four-hour series, Chicano! History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement.  The PBS election special Willie Velasquez Your Vote Is Your Voice, directed by Galán in partnership with Latino Public Broadcasting and narrated by National Medal of Arts recipient playwright/director Luis Valdez was broadcast in October 2016. His latest documentary film, Our Texas, Our Vote, was produced in partnership with Latino Public Broadcasting as part of VOCES.  Most recently, Our Texas, Our Vote was nationally broadcast on PBS in October 2024 as part of Latino Public Broadcasting's VOCES series.

Galán has explored a diversity of topics from migrant farm workers, the dynamics of race relations in the military, the rise of 1960s black political power movement, the refugee sanctuary movement of the 1980s, and college athletics. Galán directed Children of Giant, a 90-minute documentary feature which aired on PBS in April 2015 and unearthed deeply wrought emotions surrounding de-facto segregation of Anglos and Mexican Americans in the small West Texas town of Marfa, before, during and after the month-long production of George Stevens’ 1956 Hollywood film, 

 Galán was the first documentary filmmaker to be inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame by the Austin Film Society. He is a member of the writer's guild of America West, the Texas Institute of Letters and the Society of American Historians.