He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Michigan and holds advanced degrees in film and American culture.

He has also contributed to numerous publications including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Esquire, New York Magazine, Vogue, American Heritage, The New Republic, Us, and Playboy. He has appeared on many television programs, including The Today Show, CBS Morning News, The News Hour, Entertainment Tonight, Charlie Rose, and Good Morning America. Gabler hosted Sneak Previews for PBS, and introduced films on the cable network AMC.

He is the author of four books: An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood (1989), Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity (1994), Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality (1998) and Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination (2006).

Gabler was one of four panelists on the Fox News Channel show, Fox News Watch. On February 2, 2008, the show's host, Eric Burns, announced Gabler had left the show to work for PBS.

Gabler has taught at the University of Michigan and at Pennsylvania State University. He is currently Senior Fellow at the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center. An excerpt from Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality by Gabler was used on the AP English Language exam.

In 1982, Gabler paired with Jeffrey Lyons as replacement movie reviewers for the PBS show Sneak Previews. The original hosts of Sneak Previews, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, had left the show for contractual reasons and Gabler and Lyons went to Chicago to produce the show. He was a writer for the Detroit Free Press at the time. Gabler left Sneak Previews in 1985 citing differences with the direction of the show. He was replaced by Michael Medved who had had cameo appearances on Sneak Previews before replacing Gabler full time.