In the summer of 1996, Searcy produced, directed and acted in his independent feature, Paradise Falls (1997), written by Sean Bridgers, and they won a Hollywood Discovery Award at the Hollywood Film Festival for Best Feature Film (Under $1 Million) and Best Dramatic Feature at the Charleston, S.C., 1997 WorldFest. Since then, he has appeared in films such as Cast Away (2000), One Hour Photo (2002), Runaway Jury (2003), The Assassination of Richard Nixon, (2005), The Ugly Truth 2009, 3 Billboards (2017) and The Shape of Water (2017), both of the latter having been nominated for Best Picture at the 2018 Academy Awards.