As an independent artist
Following the release of Year Zero, Reznor announced later that Nine Inch Nails had split from its contractual obligations with Interscope Records, and would distribute its next major albums independently. In May 2008 Reznor founded The Null Corporation and Nine Inch Nails released the studio album The Slip as a free digital download. In his appreciation for his following and fan base, and having no contractual obligation, he made "The Slip" available for free on his website, stating "This one's on me." A month and a half after its online release, The Slip had been downloaded 1.4 million times from the official Nine Inch Nails website.
In February 2009, Reznor posted his thoughts about the future of Nine Inch Nails on NIN.com, stating that "I've been thinking for some time now it's time to make NIN disappear for a while." Reznor noted in an interview on the official website that while he has not stopped creating music as Nine Inch Nails, the group will not be touring in the foreseeable future.
The original music from id Software's 1996 video game Quake is credited to "Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails"; Reznor helped record sound effects and ambient audio, and the NIN logo appears on the nailgun ammunition boxes in the game. Reznor's association with id Software began with Reznor being a fan of the original Doom. He reunited with id Software in 2003 as the sound engineer for Doom 3, though due to "time, money and bad management", he had to abandon the project, and his audio work did not make it into the game's final release.
Nine Inch Nails's 2007 major studio recording, Year Zero, was released alongside an accompanying alternate reality game. With its lyrics written from the perspective of multiple fictitious characters, Reznor described Year Zero as a concept album criticizing the United States government's current policies and how they will affect the world 15 years in the future. In July 2012, it was announced that Reznor had composed and performed the theme music for Call of Duty: Black Ops II.
In December 2024, it was announced that Reznor and Ross would score Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.
In 1994, Reznor produced the soundtrack for Oliver Stone's film Natural Born Killers, using a portable Pro Tools setup in his hotel room. For the film, Nine Inch Nails recorded a song "Burn". For The Crow soundtrack, the group recorded a cover version of Joy Division's "Dead Souls".
Reznor produced the soundtrack for David Lynch's 1997 film Lost Highway. He produced two pieces of the film's score, "Driver Down" and "Videodrones; Questions", with Peter Christopherson. He tried to get Coil onto the soundtrack, but could not convince Lynch. Nine Inch Nails recorded a song, "The Perfect Drug" for the soundtrack. The release spawned a single, with a music video directed by Mark Romanek.
In 2001, Reznor was asked by Romanek to provide the score for One Hour Photo, but the music did not work for the film and was not used. These compositions eventually evolved into Still. Reznor was credited as "Musical Consultant" on the 2004 film Man on Fire. The movie features six Nine Inch Nails songs. A remix of the Nine Inch Nails track "You Know What You Are?" by Clint Mansell was used as part of the latter's soundtrack to the 2005 film adaptation of Doom. In 2009, Reznor composed "Theme for Tetsuo" for the Japanese cyberpunk film Tetsuo: The Bullet Man directed by Shinya Tsukamoto.
Reznor collaborated with Ross to compose the score for David Fincher's The Social Network, a 2010 drama film about the founding of Facebook. Says Reznor, "When I actually read the script and realized what he was up to, I said goodbye to that free time I had planned." The score was noted for portraying "Mark Zuckerberg the genius, developing a brilliant idea over ominous undertones", and received nearly unanimous praise. The film's score was released in October 2010 in multiple formats, including digital download, compact disc, 5.1 surround on Blu-ray, and vinyl record. A 5-song sampler EP was released for free via digital download.
On January 7, 2011, Reznor announced that he would again be working with Fincher, this time to provide the score for the American adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. A cover of "Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin, produced by Reznor and Ross, with Karen O (of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) as the featured singer, accompanied a trailer for the film. Reznor and Ross's second collaboration with Fincher was scored as the film was shot, based on the concept of "what if we give you music the minute you start to edit stuff together?" Reznor explained in 2014 that the composition process was "a lot more work" and that he "would be hesitant to go as far in that direction in the future".
Reznor and Ross again collaborated to score Fincher's film Gone Girl. Fincher was inspired by music he heard while at an appointment with a chiropractor and tasked Reznor with creating the musical equivalent of an insincere façade. Reznor explained Fincher's request in an interview: "David [Fincher] was at the chiropractor and heard this music that was inauthentically trying to make him feel OK, and that became a perfect metaphor for this film. [...] The challenge was, simply, what is the musical equivalent of the same sort of façade of comfort and a feeling of insincerity that that music represented? [My primary aim was] to instill doubt [and] remind you that things aren't always what they seem to be." Richard Butler of The Psychedelic Furs sang a cover version of the song "She", which was used in the film's teaser trailer. The soundtrack album was released on the Columbia label on September 30, 2014.
During Reznor and Ross's keynote session at the 2014 "Billboard and Hollywood Reporter Film & TV Music Conference", held on November 5, Reznor said that he is open to working with other filmmakers besides Fincher, the only director he had worked with as a composer up until that point: "I'm open to any possibility. [...] Scoring for film kind of came up unexpectedly. It was always something I'd been interested in and it was really a great experience and I've learned a lot." Reznor further explained that he cherishes his previous experiences with Fincher as "there's a pursuit and dedication to uncompromised excellence".
In December 2014, it was announced that Reznor would collaborate with composer Mike Patton, best known as the frontman of alternative metal band Faith No More, on The Girl Who Played With Fire by Fincher, the sequel to 2011's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. However, after the release of the 2015 book The Girl in the Spider's Web, a part of the series from which the films are based, Sony decided to reboot the franchise and cancelled this production.
Reznor and Ross have gone on to score films by a number of other directors, starting in 2016 with Fisher Stevens's climate change documentary Before the Flood (whose score also included compositions by Gustavo Santaolalla and Mogwai) and Peter Berg's Patriots Day, a crime drama about the Boston Marathon bombings. The following year, they made their television debut with the score for Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's documentary series The Vietnam War. In 2018, Reznor and Ross scored Jonah Hill's directorial debut Mid90s, as well as Susanne Bier's Bird Box, which was released on Netflix. Reznor and Ross also released a 2-hour box set for the Bird Box soundtrack containing additional material from their recording sessions, titled Bird Box/Null 09 Extended. Reznor later admitted his dissatisfaction with working on Bird Box during an interview for the December 2019 edition of Revolver, calling the experience a "fucking waste of time". He criticized the film's editing department for mixing the score too low in the final cut of the film, as well as the production team overall for "phoning in" the project. Reznor also revealed that he and Ross pulled out of scoring Joe Wright's The Woman in the Window, having scrapped their completed score due to displeasure with the studio's "transformation" of the film following test screenings. The film was ultimately sold to Netflix and released in 2021, with Danny Elfman replacing Reznor and Ross as composer.
In 2019, Reznor and Ross composed the score for the independent drama Waves, and later that year made their second contribution to television with their score for Damon Lindelof's HBO miniseries Watchmen, a sequel to Alan Moore's original 1987 comic series. Reznor and Ross, both fans of the comic, approached Lindelof to work on the series, and released three volumes of music from the series over the course of its broadcast. The score was critically acclaimed, and Reznor and Ross won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Limited Series in 2020.
In 2020, Reznor and Ross reunited with Fincher to score his drama film Mank as well as scoring their first animated project, Pixar's Soul. In 2021, the two won a Golden Globe and an Academy Award alongside Jon Batiste for their work on the Soul score.
In 2022, Reznor and Ross scored Luca Guadagnino's Bones and All, as well as Sam Mendes's Empire of Light. In 2023, the duo scored their second animated project, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, and reunited with Fincher for The Killer. In 2024, Reznor and Ross scored two films by Guadagnino: Challengers, and Queer. The two also composed the title theme for the HBO comedy series The Franchise; Mendes served as executive producer on the project, and directed the pilot.
In 2025, Reznor and Ross scored the sci-fi sequel Tron: Ares under the Nine Inch Nails moniker. The same year, the two also scored Scott Derrickson's The Gorge, as well as Guadagnino's After the Hunt.
