Production Posse / Live-Action Films

• The Rat Pack.^note Originally Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, David Niven, Sid Luft and Cary Grant, later resurrected with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop.
• The Brat Pack.^note Emilio Estevez, Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, and Demi Moore, with Robert Downey Jr. and James Spader as honorary members.
• The Frat Pack.^note  Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Will Ferrell, The Wilson brothers, Luke and Owen, Vince Vaughn and Steve Carell.
  • In fact, there's a whole stable of big time stars like Vince Vaughn and Will Ferrell, supported by many actors (usually because of Second City connections) that could be from The Office (US), SNL, or The Daily Show. Some of these actors could be from two shows: for example, David Koechner was a cast member of SNL and The Office (US) and Ed Helms was from The Office and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Judd Apatow probably plays behind the scenes.
  • When Apatow switched from TV to movies, he obviously kept the section of his old Rolodex with the "freaks" from Freaks and Geeks (Seth Rogen, James Franco and Jason Segel) and one of the "geeks" (Martin Starr).
    • Also from his second short lived series Undeclared Jay Baruchel and Carla Gallo.
    • Also expect Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd, Bill Hader, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and/or to appear as well in anything with his name on it.
    • Apatow's wife Leslie Mann has been in all four of his movies so far. Their two daughters in three.
  • Seth Rogen has launched a splinter posse without Judd Apatow with many of the same actors.
• Todd Phillips has cast Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, Bryan Callen, Amy Smart, Andy Dick, Matt Walsh, Snoop Dogg, Seann William Scott, Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, and Dan Finnerty in more than one film. He has also worked with Ed Helms and Ken Jeong more than once but as part of The Hangover trilogy. Brecklyn Mayer would have been part of the alumni if he had starred in The Hangover.
• Greg Mottola has cast Bill Hader in three of his films. He has also cast Kristen Wiig, Seth Rogen, Jo Lo Truglio and Martin Starr in two of his films.
• The John Ford Stock Company.
• David Wain frequetly casts Elizabeth Banks, Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler and The State alumi in his films.
• Quentin Tarantino writes and directs all his movies. Lawrence Bender, Harvey and Bob Weinstein, Michael Madsen, Harvey Keitel, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Roth and Christoph Waltz are all regulars. All of his films were edited by Sally Menke until her death in 2010; the films he made since were edited by Fred Raskin. From Kill Bill onward he's used Robert Richardson as his cinematographer. Before that, it was Andrzej Sekula or Guillermo Navarro. Whenever he wants to collaborate with another director, he usually turns to Robert Rodriguez (see below).
• Robert Rodriguez's regular stable of actors includes Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Antonio Banderas, Danny Trejo, Cheech Marin, Rose McGowan, and Salma Hayek. Spy Kids stars Daryl Sabara and Alexa Vega could very well end up here as well as he's used them each in each of the two Machete films respectively. Additionally, he's directed Pedro Pascal across multiple mediums. As for crew, Rodriguez is the crew. Also, a lot of bit-parts and behind the scenes work involve members of his family, particularly his sons Rebel, Rocket and Racer, credited as consultants for the Spy Kids movies.
• Christopher Guest movies all involve the same actors. Guest himself, Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Parker Posey, Jennifer Coolidge, Fred Willard, Ed Begley Jr., Bob Balaban, Jane Lynch, John Michael Higgins, Larry Miller, Jim Piddock, Don Lake, Paul Dooley, and Michael Hitchcock all appeared together in A Mighty Wind and For Your Consideration, all but Shearer and Dooley appeared in Best in Show, all but McKean, Levy, O'Hara, Dooley and Miller appeared in Mascots, eleven^note  Guest, Shearer, Levy, O'Hara, Posey, Willard, Balaban, Lake, Dooley, Hitchcock, Miller appeared in Waiting for Guffman, and five^note  Guest, Shearer, McKean, Begley, Willard appeared in This is Spın̈al Tap; Paul Benedict was also in the cast for This is Spın̈al Tap, Waiting for Guffman, and A Mighty Wind. Most of the films also feature behind-the-scenes contributions by the cast members; for example, McKean and Shearer received writing credits for This is Spinal Tap, the musical score for Waiting for Guffman was credited to McKean, Guest, and Shearer, and the score for A Mighty Wind had contributions from Guest, Shearer, Levy, O'Hara, and McKean (the last of whom, along with his wife Annette O'Toole, co-wrote the Oscar-nominated "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow").
• Jane Campion has worked multiple times with the following actors and cinematographers:
  • Campion has been longtime friends with Nicole Kidman, having discovered the actress when she was in drama school. Campion directed Kidman in the 1996 film The Portrait of a Lady. Kidman would go on to star in the second season of Top of the Lake, a show which was co-created by Campion.
  • Campion cast Harvey Keitel in The Piano and Holy Smoke!.
  • Genevieve Lemon and Karen Colston played the two female lead characters in Campion’s first film, Sweetie. They would also appear in The Piano and Top of the Lake.
  • Kerry Fox starred in An Angel at My Table and Bright Star.
  • Campion has worked with cinematographers Stuart Dryburgh and Dion Beebe.
• Wes Anderson films: Owen Wilson and Luke Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Anjelica Huston, Bill Murray and Indian actor Kumar Pallana, who has been in all of Anderson's films except The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Tilda Swinton, Mathieu Amalric, Léa Seydoux and Bob Balaban have made frequent appearances as well, and Tony Revolori and Saoirse Ronan seem to be the most recent initiates. He also usually has Robert Yeoman as cinematographer, Milena Canonero as costume designer (since The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou), and Adam Stockhausen as production designer. Mark Mothersbaugh was his main composer for his early films, a role which Alexandre Desplat has since filled for Anderson on all his films starting with Fantastic Mr. Fox.
• Jason Reitman has put J. K. Simmons in all five of his movies. He also directed Simmons in a live reading of The Empire Strikes Back with Simmons reading the part of Darth Vader.
  • Tully will mark the third film he has directed, that is written by Diablo Cody and second starring Charlize Theron.
  • Elena Kampouris had a small roll in Labor Day and a much larger part in Men, Women, and Children.
  • Jennifer Garner was in both Juno and Men, Women & Children.
• In his early works, John Hughes mainly used Brat Packers, the most recurring being Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall. After moving on from teen films, you'd be hard pressed to find a John Hughes film without John Candy in it, be it starring role or One-Scene Wonder cameo.
  • Macaulay Culkin is best known for the Hughes written Home Alone, but previously was directed by Hughes in Uncle Buck.
• Adam Sandler and his Happy Madison Productions house:
  • Expect any permutation of Rob Schneider, David Spade, Chris Rock, Chris Farley, (and after his death, his brother John.) Kevin Nealon, Kevin James, and Nick Swardson (in more recent movies) to be somewhere among the cast members. Of his crew of actors, some are former SNL cast members from the early 1990s.
  • Sandler's recurring actors also have included Steve Buscemi, Peter Dante, and Allen Covert.
  • And with crew members, Sandler has Rupert Gregson-Williams as composer (he's also worked Teddy Castalucci several times), Perry Andelin Blake as production designer, Brooks Arthur as music supervisor and Jack Giarraputo as producer. He also has the Panavision Genesis used on all his projects after working with Dean Semler (one of the creators of the camera) on a pair of projects.
  • Sandler's personal assistant Jonathan Loughran who appears in most of his movies.
  • Sandler is behind Spade's Rules of Engagement, though Sandler has no credited involvement. In a What Could Have Been, a Sandler-executive produced pilot starring Norm Macdonald and Jon Lovitz was also produced.
• Kevin Smith also tends to keep working with the same people from one movie to another:
  • His original gang included Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Jason Lee, himself, his wife Jennifer Schwalbach, Jason Mewes, Walt Flanagan, Bryan Johnson, Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson, with Joey Lauren Adams and Ethan Suplee to a lesser extent. Most of his movies took place on the same universe, which meant there were some actors playing multiple characters. Additionally, most of his movies featured crew members Scott Mosier (producer) and Dave Klein (director of photography).
  • Years later, Smith formed another crew, with only himself, Jennifer Schwalbach and Jason Mewes remaining from the old days. His more recent collaborators include his daughter Harley Quinn Smith, Ralph Garman, Justin Long, Haley Joel Osment, Genesis Rodriguez, Harley Morenstein, Johnny Depp and his daughter Lily-Rose Depp. Jason Mewes' wife Jordan Monsanto also joined the team as a producer.
• Say what? Darren Aronofsky is making a movie? Expect Clint Mansell to do the score, Matthew Libatique to be the cinematographer and Mark Margolis to appear in it. Mother is his first without Margolis or Mansell.
• When Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney got the idea to remake Ocean's Eleven, they went on to form a pretty tight A-List clique themselves. When a movie is directed, or at least produced by the two, it's pretty common to see Clooney, Matt Damon, or Brad Pitt starring opposite Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie or Cate Blanchett. Don Cheadle, David Strathairn, and Casey Affleck are commonly in supporting roles.
• The Wachowskis have a stable of behind-the-scenes production folks that they use on every movie. Not so much for actors, but Hugo Weaving has started to become their go-to guy when they need a good actor. Yet, somehow, he was nowhere to be seen in Speed Racer. Huh.
  • For Jupiter Ascending, some of The Wachowskis folks from Cloud Atlas, actors Doona Bae and James D'Arcy, have unspecified roles while Atlas cinematographer John Toll is taking roles as DP once again.
• Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Joe Cornish, Dylan Moran, Bill Bailey, Julian Barratt, Noel Fielding, Matt Berry, Rich Fulcher, Richard Ayoade and Matthew Holness. They often pop up in each other's various projects.
• The Coen Brothers are a two-man posse on their own. They claim to divide the writing, directing and producing credits randomly between them for each film (the editing credit goes to an Invented Individual because they were embarrassed at their names appearing so often), and people who've worked for them tend to describe them as The Dividual when it comes to artistic decisions.
  • They usually draw from the same posse of actors, such as John Goodman, Frances McDormand (Joel's wife), Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, George Clooney, John Turturro, Jon Polito, Richard Jenkins, Josh Brolin and Billy Bob Thornton. And again Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell tends to show up in small parts. They also gave Jeff Bridges two starring roles.
  • Carter Burwell and/or T Bone Burnett have done all their scores.
  • Roger Deakins has done cinematography on 12 Coen films between 1991 and 2016. Before that it was Barry Sonnenfeld for the first three films. Later films have since involved Bruno Delbonnel.
• Many movies directed by Blake Edwards have soundtracks by Henry Mancini, and were edited by Ralph E. Winters. Actors frequently used in his works were his second wife Julie Andrews, Peter Sellers (despite their tumultuous relationship), Graham Stark and Dick Crockett, the latter of whom also worked as his stunt co-ordinator. His main co-writers were Frank and Tom Waldman in the 60s and 70s, and his son Geoffrey Edwards in the 80s. Cinematography duties were handled by various individuals for much of his career, but he settled down to alternating between Harry Stradling Jr. and Dick Bush (the former when he was filming in the US, and the latter in the UK) later on.
• Monty Python members are known to appear in each others' movies, and in the works of Python-animator-turned-movie director Terry Gilliam. Like Jabberwocky, Erik the Viking, Brazil, Time Bandits, Yellowbeard, A Fish Called Wanda, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and The Wind In The Willows. This has caused some fans to assume that all of these movies are in fact Python productions, despite the fact that the troupe has considered itself to have been disbanded since the death of member Graham Chapman.
• Zhang Yimou worked for a long time with acclaimed actress Gong Li. Unfortunately, they broke up, and now he's adopted Ziyi Zhang (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) as a muse instead.
• John Woo used to work with Chow Yun-fat a lot back in his Hong Kong days. About the only big Heroic Bloodshed movie he made in Hong Kong, that didn't feature him, was Bullet in the Head.
• Movies featuring John Cusack will usually feature other Cusacks, as well as Jeremy Piven, a longtime friend.
  • If either Cusack or Tim Robbins is the lead, expect the other to make a cameo at least half the time.
• In the early George Lucas days, it was rare that his films didn't include Harrison Ford. Ironically, Lucas wanted to avoid this trope and always tried to cast someone else until circumstances forced him to cast Ford. And if he needed a dwarf, he'd go straight to Warwick Davis.
• Mel Brooks' movies were known for having Dom De Luise, Harvey Korman, Dick Van Patten, Gene Wilder, and Madeline Kahn, among others (for instance, Liam Dunn appeared in at least two of Brooks' movies). In Silent Movie, it goes to another level: Brooks plays a director, while two members of his production posse (Dom De Luise and Marty Feldman) play members of his character's production posse.
• John Waters regularly featured Divine, Edith Massey, and Mink Stole in many of his works.
• Nowadays, if there's a movie directed by J. J. Abrams, there's secondarily Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman as writers and Michael Giacchino as the score composer. He also tried giving major roles or cameos to Greg Grunberg and Simon Pegg.
• Ron Howard often co-produces with Brian Grazer. Also, expect Ron's brother Clint Howard to show up at some point.
  • His score composer is usually either Hans Zimmer or James Horner.
• Any movie directed by Akira Kurosawa in the '50s and '60s could be expected to feature some combination of Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Daisuke Kato and Minoru Chiaki. (Tatsuya Nakadai took Mifune's place in Kurosawa's later films after Mifune and Kurosawa had a falling out in the mid '60s.) Part of this was the Toho studio system and Japan's relatively small pool of actors after World War II, but after a while Kurosawa started writing parts specifically for Mifune and Shimura.
  • On the production, side he had Asakazu Nakai as his main cinematographer and Fumio Hayasaka as his composer.
• Don't be surprised if you see Michael Biehn or Bill Paxton turn up in a James Cameron movie. Arnold Schwarzenegger is not uncommon to star (at least before he became The Governator). You'll probably find Lance Henriksen or Jenette Goldstein in it and possibly Sigourney Weaver. The score is most likely either done by Brad Fiedel or James Horner. Gale Anne Hurd (Cameron's then-partner) was producer on most of his earlier films.
  • James Muro has been Steadicam operator on all of Cameron's films since The Abyss.
• John Carpenter's famous collaboration with Kurt Russell, in Escape from New York, The Thing (1982) and Big Trouble in Little China. He has also repeatedly worked with Adrienne Barbeau (and was also married to her at one point), Keith David and Donald Pleasence. In his early days he often collaborated with Debra Hill as writer/producer, Tommy Lee Wallace as production designer/editor and Nick Castle as a writer (he also played the original Michael Myers) and all his movies from Halloween to Big Trouble in Little China (minus Star Man and Christine) were shot by Dean Cundey and from then he's used Gary B Kibbe on all except for Memories Of An Invisible Man.
• If a movie is directed by Colin Nutley, Helena Bergstrom (his wife) almost invariably plays the female lead.
• Martin Scorsese and his go-to guys Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Joe Pesci, Frank Vincent, and these days, Leonardo DiCaprio. The editor of all of his movies since Raging Bull is Thelma Schoonmaker, while he has worked with cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto on all his films since The Wolf of Wall Street (previously, his main cinematographers were Michael Ballhaus and Robert Richardson), and Robbie Robertson (of The Band) and Howard Shore are among his most frequent musical collaborators. Scorsese was also the last film director to work regularly with Saul Bass.
  • Additionally, Paul Schrader has written three of his films (Taxi Driver, The Last Temptation of Christ and Bringing Out the Dead) and co-written a fourth (Raging Bull). Scorsese has also used Ben Kingsley, Gary Basaraba and Willem Dafoe a few times.
• Guy Ritchie and his frequent producer (and now a director himself) Matthew Vaughn often use the same group of actors. Dexter Fletcher and Jason Flemyng have appeared in nearly every film either of them have done.
• Guillermo del Toro movies absolutely loves having Ron Perlman and Doug Jones around, and his Spanish-language films all feature Federico Luppi, at least in a cameo. Other actors he seems to like working with include Burn Gorman, Jim Beaver, Clifton Collins Jr., David Hewlett, Richard Jenkins, Tim Blake Nelson, and Cate Blanchett. The cinematography is usually done by Guillermo Navarro and the scores are usually either Marco Beltrami or, more recently, Alexandre Desplat. Also, more times than not his films will feature a cameo by Santiago Segura.
• Rob Zombie often uses the same actors in many of his films; usually the actors from one film will show up in the next. His wife, Sheri Moon, is in everything he's done.
• Three well-known ones in Hong Kong cinema:
  • Back in the '70s and '80s, there was the "Venom Mob", an ensemble of Martial Arts Movie stars who all first worked together on Five Deadly Venoms - Kuo Chui (aka Philip Kwok), Lu Feng, Chiang Sheng, Sun Chien, Lo Mang, and Wei Pai. They would usually do their own fight choreography as well. Most of their movies were produced by the Shaw Brothers and usually directed by Chang Cheh (sometimes considered a Venom himself).
  • The "Seven Little Fortunes", a subset of which are the "Three Brothers" - Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung (Martial Law), and Yuen Biao, and Corey Yuen (martial arts director for The One, Kiss of the Dragon, Cradle 2 the Grave, Romeo Must Die and others), Yuen Wah and Yuen Qiu (Kung Fu Hustle) which started out as a Chinese opera troupe but gradually moved on to movies in the 70s, essentially defining Hong Kong action cinema. (Contrary to popular belief, Yuen Wo Ping [fight director of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Matrix, and Kill Bill ] was not a member of the Seven Little Fortunes. Yuen is his real surname; the Seven Little Fortunes just adopted it in honor of their teacher whose surname is Yuen.)
  • They have a Spiritual Successor in a new "Brat Pack" of sorts, a stable of young talents including Edison Chen, Shawn Yue, Stephen Fung, Nicholas Tse, Cecilia Chung, Joey Yung, Gillian Chung and Charlene Choi (the last two even record albums under the name Twins). Sadly, some of these kids are better known nowadays for Edison's scandal, wherein the people repairing his laptop went the extra mile to upload his Porn Stash on the internet - which included nude pics of some of the ladies. Of particular note, Nicholas Tse and Cecilia Chung even got married but later divorced. Charlene Choi got into a minor scandal herself when she revealed that she was married to actor/singer Ronald Cheng (who was 10 years her senior); by the time of the revelation in 2010, the couple had already divorced. On a happier note, Stephen Fung eventually married Shu Qi.
• Ed Wood and his posse: Dolores Fuller, Tor Johnson, Bela Lugosi, The Amazing Criswell, Bunny Breckinridge, Paul Marko, and Conrad Brooks.
• Kenneth Branagh films are likely to feature appearances by BRIAN BLESSED, Richard Briers, Geraldine MacEwan, Michael Maloney, Gerard Horan, Jimmy Yuill, and sometimes Derek Jacobi. Before Branagh and Emma Thompson divorced in 1995, she also played major roles in most of his films. Patrick Doyle usually does the music.
  • For Cinderella (2015), Sir Derek Jacobi, Stellan Skarsgård and Helena Bonham Carter return to film with Branagh, and Patrick Doyle returns to provide the score.
• Spike Lee has a particularly large one. Members of it include his sister, and are all listed on his page on The Other Wiki. He also reuses crew members, such as cinematographer Ernest Dickerson.
• The work of the "Black Pack" from the late '80s and mid '90s (Eddie Murphy, Robert Townsend, Arsenio Hall, Paul Mooney and Keenen Ivory Wayans).
• All of David Cronenberg's films since The Brood (except for The Dead Zone) are scored by Howard Shore and he has worked with cinematographer Peter Suschitzky on all of his films since Dead Ringers (before that, his go to guy was Mark Irwin). Robert Silverman often shows up in a smaller role, especially in his earlier films. Viggo Mortensen, Robert Pattinson, and Jeremy Irons are also frequent collaborators with him. Carol Spier started off as art director on three of his early films, then became production designer from The Dead Zone on. His sister Denise has been his costume designer since The Fly (1986).
• Saturday Night Live alumni tend to work together a lot, usually members of the same cast. However it has been cross-generational as well.
  • Bill Murray, and Chevy Chase in Caddyshack. (The only time they've been in the same thing outside of SNL.)
  • Murray and Dan Aykroyd in Ghostbusters (1984) which was also originally to star John Belushi and Eddie Murphy as well.
  • Aykroyd and Murphy in Trading Places.
  • Belushi and Aykroyd in 1941 (1979), The Blues Brothers and Neighbours.
  • Aykroyd and Chase in Spies Like Us, Caddyshack II, Nothing but Trouble and the Family Guy episode "Spies Reminiscent of Us".
  • Murphy and Mike Myers in Shrek.
  • Tina Fey and Amy Poehler turn up together a lot.
    • Their respective Sitcoms, 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation, have featured their former SNL colleagues as Special Guests. Will Forte and Fred Armisen have appeared on both shows. Ironically, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have not themselves appeared on each other's shows.
    • While Fey has not appeared on Parks and Recreation, Amy Poehler has since appeared on a live episode of 30 Rock as a young Liz Lemon.
  • Dennis Miller has also been known to collaborate with his SNL co-stars. MacDonald appeared frequently on Dennis Miller Live and his current radio show.
• Christopher Nolan has a noticeable tendency to cast the same actors in different films. Michael Caine has appeared in his last 5 films. Christian Bale, Cillian Murphy, and Ken Watanabe have also had recurring roles. Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt appear to be the newest members; after Inception, all three have roles in The Dark Knight Rises. In Dunkirk, Tom Hardy and Cillian Murphy appear again. As does Michael Caine in a voice cameo. Anne Hathaway appears in The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar.
  • He does screenwriting with his brother Jonathan, his wife Emma Thomas will usually be producing, Wally Pfister will be doing cinematography (and after Pfister shifting to direction, this post is taken up by Hoyte van Hoytema), Nathan Crowley handles production design, Lee Smith will be editing, either David Julyan or Hans Zimmer will be writing the score, and Chris Corbould will be on special effects.
• Whenever Tony Scott made a movie, Denzel Washington wouldn't be far behind. See Crimson Tide, Man on Fire, Déjà Vu (2006), The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, and Scott's final film Unstoppable. (All but the first also had music by Harry Gregson-Williams.) Denzel also starred in American Gangster, made by Tony's brother Ridley Scott.
• Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman, The Princess Diaries) always included a role for Héctor Elizondo.
• Ever since Gladiator, Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe frequently reunite. In addition to Crowe, Scott has also worked with Costume designer Janty Yates, production designer Arthur Max, editors Pietro Scalia and Doby Dorn and cinematographer John Mathieson (though, post-Prometheus, Scott has been working with Dariusz Wolski on projects like The Counselor and Exodus: Gods and Kings). Common composers for him also include Jerry Goldsmith, Hans Zimmer and Marc Streitenfeld.
• If Robert Altman's directed a movie, Shelley Duvall, Lily Tomlin and/or Diane Lane can't be too far behind. Elliott Gould appears often as well.
• Ditto Hal Needham (Smokey and the Bandit) and Burt Reynolds, Dom De Luise and/or Jerry Reed.
• BBS Productions in the late 60s and early 70s. For every film made by the company (with the exception of The Last Picture Show), the producer, director, writer and lead actor jobs were always filled by some combination of Bob Rafelson, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper and Henry Jaglom.
• Ingmar Bergman frequently worked with the "repertory company" of Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson, Gunnel Lindblom, Ingrid Thulin, Liv Ullmann, Gunnar Björnstrand, Erland Josephson and others, and almost always worked with cinematographer Sven Nykvist.
• Rainer Werner Fassbinder frequently worked with the same actors and production crew. Most of the Neuer Deutscher Film directors did it too.
• Every Matthew Vaughn movie is produced and possibly co-written by Jane Goldman, probably has Dexter Fletcher and Jason Flemyng, and until X-Men: First Class, a score by Ilan Eshkeri. There's a huge list of regular collaborators (including Guy Ritchie and Brad Pitt) at the other wiki
• Director James Mangold almost always has Cathy Konrad as producer, Phedon Papamichael as cinematographer and Arianne Phillips as costume designer. But he never used the same composer twice until The Wolverine (which reunites him with Marco Beltrami after 3:10 to Yuma).
• In the early 1990s, it wasn't uncommon to see a Roger Corman production with Phedon Papamichael, Janusz Kaminski, Mauro Fiore and Wally Pfister all in the camera crew (usually with Papamichael as the main cinematographer). All four have gone on to respectable careers in the cinematography field.
• Lucky McKee usually seems to have Angela Bettis as one of his actors (and when Bettis made her directorial debut, McKee was the lead actor).
• Justin Lin almost always has Sung Kang in one of his films (this would likely explain why Kang is the only actor from The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift to appear in future installments).
• Virtually every movie that David Lean ever directed featured Alec Guinness in a key secondary role (Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations, Fagin in Oliver Twist, Emir Feisal in Lawrence of Arabia and quite a few others), with Guinness only starring in The Bridge on the River Kwai. The two men had a falling out eventually and the next movie Lean made, in which he deliberately did not cast Guinness, was his first critical and financial failure since he began working with Guinness, and so for the rest of Lean's life Guinness always had a role in Lean's films, albeit increasingly smaller ones. The two men never became friends again but Lean still considered Guinness his 'good luck charm.'
  • With five Lean films to his credit, John Mills rivals Guinness as Lean's go-to actor. But Lean's earlier films generally feature many recurring actors: Celia Johnson, Kay Walsh (Mrs. David Lean for a time), Robert Newton, Stanley Holloway, Francis L. Sullivan, Joyce Carrey, Trevor Howard. Ann Todd also did three films with Lean during their brief marriage.
• Quite a few movies that Tyler Perry directs and/or produces will have himself in a lead role, and also will have Tasha Smith, David Mann and Tamela Mann (the latter two are husband and wife).
• Before he left the Church of Happyology in 2010, Paul Haggis usually had Michael Peña as one of his actors and Mark Isham as his composer (the latter two are active members).
• Along with Frank Capra and John Ford, the classic Hollywood director who had the most identifiable stock company was Preston Sturges. Such actors as Eric Blore, Al Bridge, Jimmy Conlin, Robert Grieg, Raymond Washburn, and most famously of all, William Demarest, appeared in most if not all of the movies Sturges directed for Paramount. He also directed Joel McRea in three films and Eddie Bracken in two.
• Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes movies are an attempt to enforce this trope. Around the time Game of Shadows came out, interviews with the director and the cast had them quoted saying they wanted to keep largely the same cast and crew for each movie in the series.
• Joe Wright has directed Keira Knightley in 3 out the 6 films he's made (Pride & Prejudice (2005), Atonement and Anna Karenina) and in a commercial for Chanel's 'Coco Mademoiselle' perfume. Behind the scenes, Dario_Marianelli has done the soundtrack for 4 out of 6 (Pride and Prejudice, The Soloist, Atonement and Anna Karenina); Jacqueline Durran was costume designer on the same 4; Seamus McGarvey was cinematographer for Atonement, The Soloist, Anna Karenina and Pan and Sarah Greenwood was production designer on all six.
• Joe Dante films all notably had an appearance by actor Dick Miller, with Kevin McCarthy (actor) and Robert Picardo appearing in several as well. Jerry Goldsmith scored every single Dante film from 1983 onwards up until his death.
• Jerry Goldsmith
  • He had a very fruitful collaboration with director Franklin J. Schaffner (they worked together on 7 films, including The Stripper, Planet of the Apes (1968), Patton, Papillon, Islands In The Stream, The Boysfrom Brazil and Lionheart.) Schaffner also twice-worked with actors Charlton Heston and Maurice Evans (The War Lord; Planet of the Apes (1968)), George C. Scott (Patton; Islands in the Stream) and Laurence Olivier (Nicholas and Alexandra; The Boysfrom Brazil) respectively. He also worked with cinematographer Fred J. Koenekamp and film editor Robert Swink on 5 of his films separately, and Stanley O'Toole helped produced 3 of his films.
  • He also worked with the talented filmmaker Michael Crichton for whom Goldsmith also had a beautiful collaboration with. They first worked together in Coma and then worked together on such films as The Great Train Robbery, Runaway and The 13th Warrior (whom Crichton rejected Graeme Revell's score and chose Goldsmith). Goldsmith also scored Congo which Crichton did not direct but which was based on his best-selling novel. One of Goldsmith's last scores was for an adaptation of Crichton's novel, Timeline which saw Goldsmith reunited with his Oscar-winning scored film The Omen (1976) director Richard Donner but his failing health prevented him from finishing the score and instead was sadly replaced by Brian Tyler.
• Sam Peckinpah had a "stock company" to rival John Ford: Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, James Coburn, Kris Kristofferson, Strother Martin, L.Q. Jones, R. G. Armstrong, John Davis Chandler, David Warner, Slim Pickens, Cassie Yates, Aurora Clavell to name the most frequently occurring. He also frequently worked with cinematographer Lucien Ballard and composer Jerry Fielding.
• David O. Russell has begun to form a production posse so far consisting of Mark Wahlberg, Jennifer Lawrence, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro.
  Michael K.: [on Fidel Castro biopic] A director hasn’t signed on yet, but, bitch, please, a dried turnip could tell you who’s going to direct this. It’s going to be David O. Russell. Bradley Cooper is going to play Fidel Castro, Robert DeNiro is going play the Venezuelan dictator and Marky Mark is going to play JFK.
• Any time Bob Hope and Bing Crosby would hit the Road, Dorothy Lamour would invariably be along for the ride. Subsequent Bob Hope movies tended to feature Bing Crosby in a cameo, sometimes stealing the girl away from Bob at the last minute. Jerry Colonna appeared in some of the Road to ... movies, as well as some other Bob Hope projects. Lampshaded in the theme from Road to Morocco:
  Where they're going, why we're going, how can we be sure?
  I'll lay you eight to five that we'll meet Dorothy Lamour.
• Ever since he took up filmmaking, Bobcat Goldthwait's had one of these. He's stated in interviews he mostly casts his friends. With the exception of Robin Williams, most of them are only slightly famous. This includes Geoff Pierson, Tom Kenny, Jill Talley, Toby Huss, author Dan Spencer, Morgan Murphy, Joel Murray, Tony V, Alexie Gilmore and Bryce Johnson among others. Some are people he's worked with when he was acting in movies and television (Murray from One Crazy Summer, Pierson from Unhappily Ever After).
• Black British director Steve McQueen (director) has directed three films so far. All of them starred Michael Fassbender and were edited by Joe Walker. The cinematographer for all three was Sean Bobbit.
• Director Jeff Nichols has worked with Michael Shannon in all of his films. Also actor Ray McKinnon appears in his last two fims.
• Director Ryuhei Kitamura has worked together with actors Tak Sakaguchi and Hideo Sakaki in four movies, Versus, Alive, Aragami, and Godzilla: Final Wars.
• Four movies directed by John Landis have a bit part for singer-songwriter Stephen "Charming Guy" Bishop, though Animal House is the only one with any sort of musical contribution by him.
• Bryan Singer has both cinematographer Newton Thomas Siegel and editor\composer John Ottman (though Ottman was forced out of X-Men for scheduling conflicts), while writers Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty helped him in both the X-Men sequels and Superman Returns.
• When Bryan Singer left the production of X-Men: The Last Stand he took his posse to Superman Returns, but Brett Ratner brought two of his own collaborators to replace them - cinematographer Dante Spinotti and editor Mark Helfrich - and also actor Ken Leung as a spiked mutant.
• Excluding a rotating cast of underwear models, David DeCoteau mainly uses former teen and child actors from the 60's and 70's and the occasional actor from some of his earlier works. These include Johnny Whitaker, Kristine DeBell, Jason Faunt, and Eric Roberts.
• Director Robert Wise and producer Saul Chaplin collaborated on three movie musicals during The '60s. People who worked with the duo on a movie musical two times each include musical director Irwin Kostal, screenwriter Ernest Lehman (who wrote four Wise-directed pictures in total), and actress Julie Andrews (whose association with Kostal dated back to the 1962 Carnegie Hall TV special she did with Carol Burnett).
• Quite a few Pure Flix Entertainment productions tend to have many of the same personnel; usually co-founder David A.R. White (often alongside wife Andrea Logan White) alongside one of the following: Eric Roberts; Staci Keanan, Kevin Sorbo; Bruce Marchiano (if there is an appearance of Jesus); Sting and/or Robert Miano.
• Prolific British director Michael Winner had several professional partnerships:
  • He made six movies starring Oliver Reed.
  • He made six movies starring Charles Bronson, including Death Wish. Bronson was once angered when a critic dismissed The Stone Killer as "just another Michael Winner-Charles Bronson picture".
• Outside of the Carry On movies, recurring actors that appear in it often show up in any media that was produced by Peter Rogers and directed by Gerald Thomas. For example, Carry On leading man Sid James starred in Bless This House in The '70s, and when the film of the series (Bless This House) was released, it was produced by Peter Rogers and directed by Gerald Thomas and had Carry On regulars Peter Butterworth and Terry Scott as Sid's friend and Sid's new next-door neighbour.
• The James Bond films had plenty of it. Cast-wise, Desmond Llewelyn played Q alongside every 007 until Brosnan, Lois Maxwell was Moneypenny for 14 movies, and M had just four actors in 23 movies (he's absent from For Your Eyes Only as Bernard Lee had died). In the first 16 movies, only 6 directors worked (and the one who helmed only one movie had been editor in the previous 5; not to mention the editor of that movie cutting two others before helming all 1980s Bonds), Maurice Binder did the credits for all but 2 (and those were by the same guy), Richard Maibaum wrote 13 movies, John Barry orchestrated the music in Dr. No and composed the scores of 11 others, Ken Adam designed 6 movies and Syd Cain 4 (with the latter even returning for GoldenEye), stuntman Bob Simmons - who was famously the first Bond Gun Barrel - was in 9 movies, stuntman and stunt coordinator Rémy Julienne worked on six films; cameraman/cinematographer Alec Mills was in 9... while GoldenEye marked a paradigm shift - for starters, only Martin Campbell and Sam Mendes did multiple movies - it introduced a roulette of writers (Bruce Feirstein wrote that and the two follow-ups, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade worked in all since The World Is Not Enough, Paul Haggis and John Logan had two credits apiece in the Daniel Craig era), and Binder protége Daniel Kleinman, who did the credits for all but Quantum of Solace. Also, David Arnold wrote the music for all movies between Tomorrow Never Dies and Quantum of Solace.
• Sam Mendes has collaborated with composer Thomas Newman in every single film he's directed (except Away We Go) and he has worked with Daniel Craig not only in the James Bond films (Skyfall & Spectre), but they first worked together in Road to Perdition. Mendes had worked with veteran cinematographer Conrad L. Hall in American Beauty & Road to Perdition (which proved to be Hall's last projects). Mendes has also twice worked with Chris Cooper, Allison Janney, John Krasinski, Naomie Harris, Ralph Fiennes, & editor Tariq Anwar (father of Gabrielle Anwar); while he worked with cinematographer Roger Deakins on three of his films.
• Every James Gunn-directed movie so far features Nathan Fillion, Michael Rooker, and Gregg Henry in the cast, and Tyler Bates composing the score. His brother Sean Gunn also joined this posse, starting with Super. Other recurring collaborators include Linda Cardellini, Stephen Blackehart, Steve Agee, Jennifer Holland (Gunn's wife), and Mikaela Hoover.
• Michael B. Jordan plays a role in every movie Ryan Coogler directs. Behind the camera, Coogler has also worked with the same composer (Ludwig Göransson) and production designer (Hannah Beachler) on all three of his movies.
• After Band of Brothers, many of the cast members would write and star in their own movies. Frank John Hughes and Ross McCall are screenwriters themselves - and the films will usually feature Rick Gomez, James Madio, Richard Speight Jr. and occasionally Ron Livingston.
• A variation with Shailene Woodley. While only an actress, she does frequently convince her friends to star in films with her. For example she became good friends with Miles Teller in The Spectacular Now and convinced him to star with her in the Divergent film franchise. She recommended her Divergent co-star Ansel Elgort for the lead in her next film The Fault in Our Stars too.
• Dito Montiel has collaborated with Channing Tatum on three films - Fighting, The Son of No One and A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints.
• Sean S. Cunningham, the producer-director most famous for creating Friday the 13th, tended to come back to working with the same crew members pretty often: writer Victor Miller, composer Harry Manfredini, actor Ronn Carroll, and Steve Miner in a variety of roles (director, producer, writer, or a combination of the above, depending on the movie). He also worked a lot with Wes Craven in his younger years.
• Watch any Clint Eastwood film from the '70s or '80s and there's a good chance Geoffrey Lewis or Sondra Locke (Eastwood's then long-term partner) will show up. Other Eastwood stalwarts from that era included William O'Connell, Dan Vadis, John Quade, Bill McKinney and Woodrow Parfrey. Albert Popwell featured in five Eastwood films, including four of the Dirty Harry movies (playing a different character each time). Eastwood appeared in three films with another of his partners, Frances Fisher. Buddy van Horn, Eastwood's stunt double and stunt co-ordinator for forty years, directed three films which starred Eastwood. More recently, Clint's go-to actors have included Morgan Freeman and Laura Linney. On the other side of the camera, Tom Stern has been cinematographer on almost all of Eastwood's films for the past 15 years, while producer Robert Lorenz and editor Joel Cox are also long-time collaborators.
• Clint Eastwood as an actor is a part of Sergio Leone and Don Siegel's posses, appearing in three films directed by Leone and five directed by Siegel. Siegel in turn had a cameo role in the Eastwood-directed Play Misty for Me.
• Paul Verhoeven: In his English language films, expect to see any of Michael Ironside, Sharon Stone, Ronny Cox, Marshall Bell and Dean Norris. Meanwhile in his Dutch films Rutger Hauer was his go-to star for many years. Jeroen Krabbé and Dolf De Vries are also regulars.
• Derrick J Wyatt and Marty Isenberg occasionally form a very nerdy and pander-heavy duo.
• David Lynch has a large list of frequent collaborators across his films, most notably lead actors Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern as well as Lynch's personal friend Jack Nance up until Nance's death in 1996. Among his behind-the-scenes collaborators, Angelo Badalamenti has scored virtually all of his projects since Blue Velvet.
• Owing to the remote location of New Zealand, Peter Jackson had to assemble a Production Posse of his own just to get any of his ambitious films made.
  • Nearly the entire crew of his first feature, Bad Taste, form the nucleus of Jackson's later collaborative team, such as Jamie Selkirk (Editor), Costa Botes (Documentarian), and Fran Walsh (Co-writer & Jackson's wife).
  • With Meet the Feebles, the posse expanded by creating a professional visual effects department, Weta Workshop, eventually led by Production Designer Richard Taylor. Stephen Sinclair co-writes this one with Jackson, and the two would go on to share a writing credit for Braindead and The Two Towers.
  • Kiwi actor Jed Brophy first appeared in Jackson's Braindead aka Dead Alive in 1992, and would appear as a minor character in every movie of Jackson's afterwards until being promoted to a starring role as Nori the Dwarf in The ''Hobbit'' Trilogy. Storyboard Artist Christian Rivers becomes a protege of Jackson's, eventually going on to direct feature films of his own which Jackson produced.
  • Heavenly Creatures brought in production designer Grant Major, producer/director Carolynne Cunningham, & costumer Ngila Dickson.
  • The Frighteners necessitated a lot of advanced computer hardware, and therefore Weta Digital spun-off from the Workshop and would be essential in creating Jackson's later blockbusters. Art Director Dan Hennah and production manager Rick Porras join the posse and would work on Jackson's next big project.
  • The Lord of the Rings brought in Stephen Sinclair's partner, Phillipa Boyens, as co-writer on all three films. Andy Serkis and Jackson would go on to collaborate in several other Mo-Cap and Performance Capture Projects in the future, most notably King Kong (2005). Cinematographer Andrew Lesnie would film every single one of Jackson's future feature films until his death in 2015 right after the Hobbit wrapped.
• Alfred Hitchcock frequently worked with actors multiple times, most notably Cary Grant (4 times), James Stewart (4 times), Grace Kelly (3 times), and Ingrid Bergman (3 times). In addition, Bernard Hermann was the composer for 8 of his films (and was the sound consultant for a 9th), Robert Burks was the cinematographer for 12, George Tomasini was the editor for 9, and Edith Head was the costume designer for 7. Ben Hecht also worked as a writer on 7 of Hitchcock's films in some capacity.
• All of Pedro Almodóvar's films since 1986 have been produced by his brother Agustín, along with Esther García. José Salcedo edited all his films between 1980 and his 2017 death, and his regular composer since La Flor de Mi Secreto has been Alberto Iglesias (Bernardo Bonezzi was his go-to guy for his earlier films). In front of the camera, expect to see any of Antonio Banderas, Penélope Cruz, Chus Lampreave, Carmen Maura, Cecilia Roth, and Rossy de Palma.
• Actor, martial artist, and stuntman Marko Zaror has starred in four films (Kiltro, Mirageman, Mandrill, and Redentor) by Chilean director Ernesto Díaz Espinoza all of which are action / superhero films with numerous well-choreographed fight scenes.
• Indie director Tom DiCillo gave Catherine Keener her first starring role in Johnny Suede and then gave her prominent roles in his next three films. He also has cast Steve Buscemi and Dermot Mulroney in multiple films.
• David Fincher has worked with cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth on four films, starting with Fight Club. Camera operator Conrad Hall Jr. worked on both Se7en and Fight Club before becoming cinematographer on Panic Room; in a similar vein, gaffer(chief lighting technician) Claudio Miranda worked on The Game and Fight Club before being cinematographer on The Curious Caseof Benjamin Button. Costume designer Michael Kaplan, production designer Arthur Max, editor James Haygood, and composer Howard Shore are also frequent Fincher collaborators, as are actors Brad Pitt, Jared Leto, Richmond Arquette, and Holt McCallany.
• Steven Spielberg has worked with cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, editor Michael Khan, and composer John Williams on virtually all his films since the early 1990s.
• Robert Zemeckis has made at least four films with cinematographer Don Burgess and composer Alan Silvestri.
• Michael Mann and cinematographer Dante Spinotti have made five movies together and camera operator Gary Jay has worked with both men on most pictures they have made—both jointly and separately.
• Oliver Stone worked with cinematographer Robert Richardson on virtually all of his directorial projects up until U Turn. The two men frequently had Victor Kempster as production designer. However, the trio has not collaborated on a film since the late 1990s. Stone has also worked with most of his editors more than once.
• Robert Richardson—who as noted in some of the above entries has been the go-to cinematographer for such directors as Oliver Stone, Martin Scorsese, and Quentin Tarantino—has a production posse of his own: he has worked with gaffer Ian Kincaid, assistant cameraman/focus puller Gregory Tavenner, and key grip Chris Centrella on nearly all his movies since the mid-1990s.
• Władysław Pasikowski, a Polish director predominately associated with action flicks from the 90s, is notorious for continuously hiring the same male actors for his projects, and his posse just kept growing over the years. It is easy to claim that anyone who was someone in the Polish film industry in the 90s and early 00s was part of his posse. On top of that, many of the actors he kept working with either got Star-Making Role or Career Resurrection (some both) thanks to their collaboration with him. Pasikowski even actively weaponized his posse to get one of his movies, Demons of War, made really cheaply by simply calling his regulars and asking if they would work for pocket change just to make the movie happen. And so, despite having No Budget, he managed to have an All-Star Cast just by calling old favours. The most notorious member of his posse is probably Bogusław Linda, who went from a respected drama actor to someone associated almost entirely with playing Memetic Badasses, working in eight movies by Pasikowski. The posse even extended to the Glina ("Cop") TV series, where his regulars played bit characters and Villain of the Week. More importantly, the leads of the series joined the posse, playing regular roles in Pasikowski's movies from there on.
  • It is worth to note that his posse isn't limited just to the actors, as he keeps working with the same people on the technical side of things, too. And almost all of his works are scored by Michał Lorenc, an established Polish movie composer.
• Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas reused several actors from their Carry On... Series in their other comedy films, notably Joan Sims (five times); Joan Hickson, Sid James, and Leslie Phillips (four times); Esma Cannon, Cyril Chamberlain, Victor Maddern, and Lance Percival (three times); and Eric Barker, Jim Dale, Ed Devereaux, Lucy Griffiths, Jill Ireland, David Lodge, Michael Nightingale, Marianne Stone, Kenneth Williams (two times).
• French director Maurice Pialat made several films with Gérard Depardieu and Sandrine Bonnaire (not always with the two of them).
• When Hancock's Half Hour star Tony Hancock starred in The Rebel and The Punch and Judy Man, he was joined by a few who had also been in Half Hour, including John Le Mesurier, Hugh Lloyd, Mario Fabrizi, and Hattie Jacques. However, Hancock forbade Sid James from being cast due to fears he would only be seen as a double-act.

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