Ranking 10 Most Prolific Actor-Director Duos Of All Time

10. Ethan Hawke & Richard Linklater

Collaborations: Before Sunrise, The Newton Boys, Tape, Waking Life, Before Sunset, Fast Food Nation, Before Midnight, Boyhood

The professional relationship between Hawke and Linklater is unlike any others on this list. Their movies -- experimental Sundance fodder at its best -- feel more like a string of well-choreographed meet-ups between college friends than an actual filmography. There's a looseness to their collaborations that never looks messy. It just feels natural. And right.

Along with Julie Deply, Hawke and Linklater embraced their reckless romantic sides with the "Before" series, a trio of films that have perfectly signposted the duo's unpredictable careers.

When Hawke appeared in Before Sunrise, he was a semi-recognizeable quantity known for his roles in Dead Poets Society and Reality Bites. When he finished Before Midnight, he'd become a mega-star, undergone several career makeovers, and endured large spates of irrelevance.

But whenever he's come back to Linklater -- whether in an intense psychodrama like Tape, or in an overtly political ensemble drama like Fast Food Nation -- things have, at the very least, gotten interesting again. As their most recent liaison, Boyhood, proves, you'll never get a throwaway movie when Hawke and Linklater are involved.