Sam Mendes and Thomas Newman
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The greatest director-composer partnerships

7. Sam Mendes and Thomas Newman
In 1999, Newman composed the score to Sam Mendes' first feature film American Beauty (pictured), using mainly percussion instruments. This was his first collaboration with Mendes, and he would go on to score most of the director's subsequent films, including Road to Perdition, Jarhead, Revolutionary Road, and Skyfall.