Ten Best Director/Composer Collaborations

10. Alejandro González Iñarritú and Gusatvo Santaolalla

There's always something special that happens when these two get together. They both have a unique sense of style that seems like a perfect match. Both of them have a somber tone within their work that can be powerful without being overly dramatic. The two have had a strong career together, working on Iñarritú's three most memorable works Amores Perrors, 21 Grams and Babel. The last film in this self described trilogy garnished Best Picture and Director nominations for Iñarritú, and granted Santaolalla his second consecutive Oscar for Best Original Score.

9. John Carpenter and John Carpenter

Most of the time, a director and composer should not be shared by the same person. However, I believe this to be the only exception where the shared position works out with fantastic results. There have been very few times that John Carpenter has not provided the music for his own films, and when he does we get an unbelievable score. He's had many to his credit, such as The Fog, Village of the Damned, Vampires and Big Trouble in Little China, but it is those daunting piano keys from Halloween that will always bring a chill to the spine.

8. M. Night Shyamalan and James Newton Howard

Even though many might argue that Shyamalan's work has diminished over they years, his great collaboration with James Newton Howard has not shown any signs of stopping. Ever since The Sixth Sense, M. Night has relied on Howard to create his eerie scores to perfectly fit the mysterious mood of his films. Shyamalan and Howard have continued to work together all the way up through The Lady in the Water, but listen to the chilling score to Signs in order to understand the true magic these two can bring to the screen.

7. Robert Zemeckis and Alan Silvestri

Zemeckis and Silvestri seem to go so perfect together simply because of the product that happens to come out. They first worked together for 1984's Romancing the Stone, and since that film their collaboration has not stopped. While we will always have scores like Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, What Lies Beneath, The Polar Express and Death Becomes Her, it will be the operatic and playful tunes of the Back to the Future trilogy that we'll always be humming.

6. David Cronenberg and Howard Shore

Howard Shore will always have Peter Jackson to thank for his three Oscars, but he'll also have to pay tribute to David Cronenberg for his instance in the very beginning to always keep him working. Cronenberg has made it very well known that he prefers to continue working with his Canadian film crew, and that persistence has led to some great scores between the two of them. Cronenberg's sense of foreboding darkness and twisted morality is perfectly captured by Shore's abundant use of horns and violins. The best highlights: the cool and somber notes to 2005's A History of Violence and the chilling, almost operatic score to the 1986 horror remake of The Fly.

5. Ridley Scott and Hans Zimmer

These two are one of the greatest matches ever. This is probably because they both share a love for the operatic and theatrical. We remember Scott from films like Alien, Legend and Blade Runner while Zimmer has been known for his impactful scores to As Good as It Gets, Rain Man, and not to mention his Oscar-winning work on The Lion King. These two first met up with 1991's Thelma & Louise, but nine years later, they'd be back with a punch for 2000's Best Picture winner Gladiator. Since then, with movies like Hannibal, Matchstick Men and Black Hawk Down, these two keep providing great works that forever establishes them as the masters of epic.

4. Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone

These two masters pioneered the "spaghetti western"genre with their unique style of the tunes they managed to create. Leone's epic grand scale was perfectly manifested in Morricone's playful use of instruments such as the guitar and strings. Together, they provided the memorable scores to films such as Once Upon a Time in the West, A Fistful of Dollars, Once Upon a Time in America, For a Few Dollar More, and, perhaps the best use of a whistle in a motion picture score: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

3. Steven Spielberg and John Williams

One of the things that makes a collaboration so great is the mere fact of a lasting impact. These is perhaps more than present in the famous duo of Steven Spielberg and John Williams. Ever since their Oscar-winning work on Jaws, the two have never stopped working together. Every film from then on that Spielberg has directed, with the exception of The Color Purple, has been scored by John Williams. Some examples of the most memorable pieces of music history they have made: Indiana Jones, E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, Saving Private Ryan, Amistad, Jurassic Park and Munich.

2. Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann

Alfred Hitchcock was dubbed the master of suspense when he was at his prime. Bernard Herrmann was just the composer to bring the grand vision of Hitchcock to the screen and translate it into an epic sound. Their collaboration came late in Hitch's career, in 1956 with The Trouble with Harry, but this duo soon learned there was much more to be found. North by Northwest succeed on creating the magnificence of the set and big stars, Vertigo was a masterful art piece that swayed its audience with lullaby notes, and no one will ever forget Psycho's daunting, high pitched violins.

1. Tim Burton and Danny Elfman

Never has there probably been a greater marriage between film and music than that of Tim Burton and Danny Elfman. Both of their film careers being started for 1985's Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, these two have been working together for all of Tim's films, with the exception of Ed Wood and the forthcoming Sweeney Todd. Burton's exquisite sense for the Gothic and macabre is solidly matched in Elfman's stylish mood in the music. It is difficult to imagine what their films would have been like if they weren't together. Such wonderful scores like Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Batman, Sleepy Hollow and Big Fish might never have reached our ears. Let us be thankful that it has.

Like the list? Did I leave a duo out? Comment below.