The same recording also ended up in Steven Soderbergh's hands and Martinez was hired to score the famed director's first theatrical release, 1989's Sex, Lies, and Videotape.

[citation needed] Martinez's longstanding relationship with Soderbergh has continued through the years and they have worked together on ten theatrical releases including Kafka (1991), The Limey (1999), Traffic (2000), Solaris (2002) and 2011's Contagion, as well the Cinemax series The Knick (2014–2015).

His nontraditional scores tend towards being stark and sparse, utilizing a modern tonal palette to paint the backdrop for films that are often dark, psychological stories like Pump Up the Volume (1990), The Limey, Wonderland (2003), Wicker Park (2004) and Drive (2011).

Martinez's recent films include Robert Redford's The Company You Keep (2012), Nicholas Jarecki's Arbitrage (2012), Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers (2012) (co-composed with Skrillex), and Nicolas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives[8] and The Neon Demon (2016).

[11] Martinez also composed two songs, "Vibe" and "Kotopulse", for the 2014 Lincoln Motor Company advertising campaign featuring Matthew McConaughey.