Even though his place of birth is written as Bandırma in his identification card, he was born in the Istanbul Gureba Hospital on 1 October 1938. His father is Fikri Başaran the carpenter and his mother is the author Pakize Başaran. His childhood and youth were spent in the Fatih district of Istanbul. He says that the place which changed his life is the district named Şehzadebaşı, formerly called Direklerarası, because there were 7-8 movie theatres here. Ever since he was 6, he has been living through the films screened in those movie theatres.

In the year 1955, he runs away from home and school. He aims to get on a ship as a castaway and go to the United States. He would be a filmmaker and, for whatever reason, meet Chalton Heston. He is caught at Adapazarı. In 1991 when he becomes nominated for the Academy award in the Best Foreign Film category, he meets Charlton Heston at a parry thrown in his honour in Hollywood...

While studying at the Faculty of Literature, he meets Memduh Ün, who, reading a script that he has written, offers him to work as his assistant. Başaran, who works with Ün for four years, says that "Whatever I have learned, I've learned from him." He also works as assistant with famous directors like Lütfi Akad, Halit Refiğ, Atıf Yılmaz, and Ertem Göreç. In 1964, in his first film, he works with famous writer Orhan Kemal who has adapted a play of his into a film named Borusunu Öttüren / One Who Blows His Horn. According to Başaran, it is not a good film. Then come Kara Memet / Memet the Dark and Bekçi Murtaza / Murtaza the Guard by Orhan Kemal. He calls that "One of the best films I have made".

In the beginning of the '70s, due to the rush of sex films in Yeşilçam (Turkish Hollywood) and real filmmakers leaving the arena, he gives up directing and moves his home out of the city in a single night. He then enters the advertising sector and starts making commercials. Soon he becomes a number one in this sector. But he believes that the time has come to make feature films again, after a fifteen-year hiatus. He puts all the money he has earned into the film named Biri ve Diğerleri / One and the Others, the script of which he has also written. The film brings him the Special Award of the Jury at the Antalya Film Festival of 1987, and then the Best Film Award at the 1988 Istanbul Film Festival (or, Istanbul Film Days, as it was named back then).

Then he makes Uçurtmayı Vurmasınlar / Don't Let Them Shoot the Kite (1989). This film, bringing him many national and international awards as Best Film and Best Director - starting with the Best Turkish Film of the Year Award he received from the 1989 Istanbul Film Festival - becomes nominated for the Academy Award in the category of Best Foreign Film. It is followed by Piano Piano Bacaksız / Piano Piano Kid (1991), which lives up to the success of Don't Let Them Shoot the Kite. Uzun İnce Bir Yol / A Long Narrow Road (1993), Sen de Girme / Please Don't Go (1996), Kaçıklık Diplaması / Graduate of Insanity (1998), Abuzer Kadayıf / Abuzer Baklava (2000) are other successful films of Başaran.