Ramesh was into films from an early age. He used to visit the sets of the film Sazaa, his father's first film, when he was 6 years old. Ramesh's first film job came when he was 9 years old, when he played Achala Sachdev's son in Shahenshah. He worked in both the production and direction departments in films like Johar-Mehmood in Goa and Mere Sanam, which his father was producing. He worked for 7 years as an assistant before becoming the director of Andaz, in 1971 which was a huge success. His second film Seeta Aur Geeta in 1972 was also highly successful.
In 1975 he directed Sholay which went on to become the biggest blockbuster in Bollywood film history and won lots of acclaim. Sholay still remains the biggest blockbuster film in Hindi film history and remains one of best remembered films to this day especially due the performance of the late actor Amjad Khan in the legendary villain role of Gabbar Singh. He never managed to repeat the success of Sholay but his next 3 films Shaan (1980), Shakti (1982) and Saagar (1985) were moderately successful.
He also directed a successful television serial titled Buniyaad which focused on the India and Pakistan Partition and originally aired on Indian television channel Doordarshan in 1987. The last four films he directed, Bharashtchar (1989), Akayla (1991), Zameen (1995) and Zamana Deewana (1995) were box office flops and he has since not directed any film. He still however occasionally produces films.
His string of hits with Amitabh made him one of the golden directors who had a special working relationship with Amitabh Bachchan ( Yash Chopra, Prakash Mehra, Manmohan Desai, and Hrishikesh Mukherjee being the other four).
In 2005 he received the Filmfare Best Film of 50 Years award for his legendary film Sholay.
He recently produced the two films directed by his son Rohan Sippy which were Kuch Naa Kaho (2003) and Bluffmaster (2005). In 2006 he produced Taxi No 9211 which was directed by Milan Luthria.
