A subtrope of Production Posse; when a director or other influential individual in the creation of a movie/show/game is intrinsically associated with a particular composer who scores all or most of their projects. Artists and musicians in this type of business relationship are frequently friends, and have been known to feed into one another's creative processes.
This does not include examples where a composer and director work together by being both associated with a single franchise, such as Star Wars. This also focuses on creators as specific individuals who have ongoing relationships with composers, rather than studios.
Please sort examples by director first and composer second, unless specified:
- Hideaki Anno and Shiro Sagisu
- Hayao Miyazaki and Joe Hisaishi
- Mamoru Oshii and Kenji Kawai
- Makoto Shinkai and Tenmon
- Koichi Mashimo and Yuki Kajiura (starting on Eat-Man going through the Girls with Guns Trilogy and so far ending at Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-)
- Ei Aoki and Yuki Kajiura (mentioned above)
- Osamu Tezuka and Isao Tomita
- Akira Toriyama and Shunsuke Kikuchi
- Satoshi Kon and Susumu Hirasawa
- Kenji Kamiyama and Kenji Kawai or Yoko Kanno
- Ei Aoki or Tetsuro Araki and Hiroyuki Sawano
- Akiyuki Shinbo and Yuki Kajiura (mentioned above again)
Film and Western Live-Action
- Charles Feldman and Burt Bacharach.
- Michel Legrand and Jacques Demy.
- Nikita Mikhalkov and Eduard Artemyev.
- Carmine Coppola and son Francis Ford Coppola.
- Lalo Schifrin and Clint Eastwood.
- Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch.
- Blake Edwards and Henry Mancini, from Peter Gunn to Son of the Pink Panther (the last film for both of them).
- Mel Brooks and John Morris, from The Producers up to Life Stinks. They met while working on Broadway musicals as writer and dance arranger.
- Gerry Anderson and Barry Gray
- Busby Berkeley and Harry Warren. Their relationship is largely due to both being under contract to Warner Bros. through much of the 1930s, but Warren was not a principal songwriter for Dames or Gold Diggers of 1937, and Roman Scandals and The Gang's All Here were not Warner Bros. productions.
- Christopher Nolan and David Julyan, Ludwig Göransson, or Hans Zimmer
- Russell T. Davies (writer/producer) and Murray Gold
- Chris Carter (writer/producer) and Mark Snow
- Bill Lee composed the music for Spike Lee's first four movies and Terence Blanchard scored the rest.
- Ishirō Honda and Akira Ifukube
- Darren Aronofsky and Clint Mansell
- Wolfgang Petersen and Klaus Doldinger
- Jean-Marie Poiré and Eric Lévi (L'Opération Corned-Beef, Les Visiteurs)
- Matthew Vaughn and Ilan Eshkeri
- Ivan Reitman and Randy Edelman.
- Michael Bay and Steve Jablonsky (Starting with The Island (2005) and some of the live-action Transformers Film Series as well as the Bay-produced horror remakes)
- Kinji Fukasaku and Toshiaki Tsushima
- Phil Lord & Chris Miller and Mark Mothersbaugh.
- Kenneth Branagh and Patrick Doyle.
- David Fincher has had two such collaborators, Howard Shore (Se7en to Panic Room, except Fight Club) and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (all since The Social Network).
- Marc Streitenfeld scored five straight Ridley Scott films, from A Good Year to Prometheus. In-between, he even scored one movie by Scott's son Jake.
- Luc Besson and Éric Serra.
- Denis Villeneuve and Jóhann Jóhannsson (worked together on three movies).
- Céline Sciamma and Jean-Baptiste de Laubier (a.k.a. Para One)
- Paul Thomas Anderson and Jonny Greenwood, from There Will Be Blood to now.
- Destin Daniel Cretton and Joel P. West.
- Dario Argento and Goblin.
- Edgar Wright and Steven Price
- Bernardo Bertolucci and Ryuichi Sakamoto (worked together on three movies: The Last Emperor, The Sheltering Sky, and Little Buddha).
- Jordan Peele and Michael Abels.
- Wes Anderson has had Mark Mothersbaugh from Bottle Rocket to The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and Alexandre Desplat starting with Fantastic Mr. Fox.
- Justin Hurwitz has composed the score for every single one of Damien Chazelle's films, with the two having known each other since they were college roommates.
Film and Western Live-Action Composers With Multiple Associated Directors
- Michael Giacchino:
- J. J. Abrams (except Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker, where John Williams remained on the franchise).
- Pete Docter (bar Monsters, Inc., which goes to Randy Newman, and Soul, which is done with Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Jon Batiste)
- Elliott Goldenthal:
- Miklós Rózsa:
- Maurice Jarre:
- Bernard Herrmann:
- Alfred Hitchcock used Herrmann exclusively for all his films from The Trouble with Harry through Marnie, a period that marked the height of both their careers.
- Orson Welles. Herrmann's association with Welles predates the one he had with Hitch, going all the way back to Welles's first feature, Citizen Kane (1941).
- Randy Newman:
- Thomas Newman:
- David Newman:
- Carter Burwell:
- Howard Shore:
- John Williams:
- Steven Spielberg, starting with The Sugarland Express .
- Chris Columbus.
- Oliver Stone.
- Irwin Allen.
- George Lucas
- Jerry Goldsmith:
- Franklin J. Schaffner.
- Joe Dante.
- Sean Connery (Connery even sported Goldsmith's iconic ponytail as tribute to the veteran composer in Medicine Man.)
- Michael Crichton.
- Stephen Sommers.
- Paul Verhoeven.
- John McTiernan.
- Curtis Hanson.
- Steven Spielberg
- Elmer Bernstein:
- Alan Silvestri:
- Robert Zemeckis, starting with Romancing the Stone.
- Stephen Sommers.
- Gore Verbinski
- Donald Petrie.
- Hans Zimmer:
- Ridley Scott.
- Tony Scott.
- Ron Howard
- Gore Verbinski
- Christopher Nolan.
- James L. Brooks.
- John Badham.
- Barry Levinson.
- Zimmer and his associates work on most of the films produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.
- James Horner:
- James Cameron worked together on Aliens, Titanic (1997), and Avatar.
- Ron Howard.
- Mel Gibson.
- Danny Elfman
- Ennio Morricone:
- Nino Rota:
- Pino Donaggio:
- Bill Conti:
- James Newton Howard.
- Marc Shaiman:
- Christopher Young:
- A. R. Rahman:
- Rachel Portman:
- Philip Glass:
- Brad Fiedel:
- Michael Kamen:
- Basil Poledouris:
- Mark Isham.
- William Ross:
- John Debney:
- Garry Marshall, from The Princess Diaries onwards.
- Donald Petrie.
- Jon Favreau.
- John Powell:
- Vladimir Cosma:
- Gérard Oury
- Yves Robert
- Édouard Molinaro
- Claude Zidi
- Claude Pinoteau
- Francis Veber
- Jean-Pierre Mocky
- Tangerine Dream:
- Vangelis:
- Ridley Scott
- Frédéric Rossif
- Masato Kato and Yasunori Mitsuda
- Shigeru Miyamoto and Koji Kondo (along with other musicians associated with Kondo, such as Hajime Wakai and Mahito Yokota).
- Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu
- Yasumi Matsuno and Hitoshi Sakimoto
- Ron Gilbert and Michael Land.
- Tim Schafer and Peter Mc Connel.
- Koji Igarashi and Micharu Yamane.
- Bungie and Martin O'Donnell.
- Goichi Suda and Masafumi Takada
- Goichi Suda and Akira Yamaoka, after Takada left Grasshopper Manufacture
- Ryukishi07 and Dai
- Tetsuya Nomura and Yoko Shimomura
- Looking Glass Studios and Irrational Games with Eric Brosius
- Yuji Horii and Koichi Sugiyama.
Creators who tend to compose scores for their own projects:
- Alejandro Amenabar
- Alexandre Astier
- John Carpenter
- Clint Eastwood, since Mystic River
- Mike Figgis
- Toby Fox
- Robert Rodriguez (a protege of John Debney, who's collaborated with Rodriguez on several projects)
- Victor Schertzinger