Glover was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Carrie (née Hunley) and James Glover, both of whom were postal workers and were active in the NAACP. Glover grew up with a love for sports just like his father. Glover's mother, daughter of a midwife, was born in Louisville, Georgia and graduated from Paine College. Glover graduated from George Washington High School (San Francisco) before attending American University and matriculating at San Francisco State University. At university, he also met his future wife Asake Bomani, whom he married in 1975. They have been divorced for some time now.

Glover has had a variety of film, stage, and television roles. He is best known for his role as Los Angeles police Sgt. Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon movie series, and his role as the abusive husband to Whoopi Goldberg's character Celie in The Color Purple. He was given top billing for the first time in Predator 2, the sequel to the sci-fi actioner Predator. In addition, Glover has been a voice actor in many children's movies. Among many awards, he has won five NAACP Image Awards, for his achievements as an actor of color . Danny Glover also worked in 2001 blockbuster Royal Tenenbaums also starring Gywneth Paltrow, Anjelica Huston Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson

In 2005, Glover and Joslyn Barnes announced plans to make "No FEAR," a movie about Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo's experience. Coleman-Adebayo won a 2000 jury trial against the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The jury found the EPA guilty of violating the civil rights of Coleman-Adebayo on the basis of race, sex, color and a hostile work environment, under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Coleman-Adebayo was terminated shortly after she revealed the environmental and human disaster taking place in the Brits, South Africa, vanadium mines. Her experience inspired passage of the No FEAR Act.

In May of 2007, it was announced that the Venezuelan Government would give Glover $18 million to make a film version of the 18th-century Haiti slave uprising that was led by Toussaint Louverture. The Asociación Nacional de Autores Cinematográficos (ANAC) and several prominent Venezuelan filmmakers such as Solveig Hoogesteijn, Jonathan Jakubowicz, Franco de Peña and José Ramón Novoa criticized such large investment in Glover's movie since the same amount of money is equivalent to the budget for 4 years given by the Venezuelan government to the National Film Board of Venezuela (CNAC) and could could support the production of over 34 Venezuelan films. An additional $9.840.505 was approved by the Venezuelan National Assembly in April of 2008.

On January 24, 2008, he was convicted of trespassing during a union rally at a Sheraton Hotel in Niagara Falls, Ontario. He was convicted along with union representative Alex Dagg and Ontario Federation of Labour president Wayne Samuelson. Although Canadian Niagara Hotels were seeking $22,000 in a private prosecution, Glover, Dagg and Samuelson were sentenced with a $100 fine on February 8, 2008. The justice of the peace suggested that "the prosecution was unnecessary to protect the interests of the hotel's owner, and that the company should have put more effort toward good faith negotiations with the union".