Throughout his career, Ferretti has worked with many acclaimed directors, both American and Italian, including; Pier Paolo Pasolini, Elio Petri, Federico Fellini, Liliana Cavani, Terry Gilliam, Franco Zeffirelli, Martin Scorsese, Anthony Minghella, and Tim Burton.

[1] He also had a five-film collaboration with Pier Paolo Pasolini and later developed a very close professional relationship with Martin Scorsese, designing nine of his last eleven movies.

[citation needed] In 2008, he designed the set for Howard Shore's opera The Fly, directed by David Cronenberg, at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.

[citation needed] Ferretti has won three Academy Awards for Best Art Direction; for The Aviator, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Hugo.

[2][3] For the 2015 Expo held in Milan, Italy Ferretti was commissioned to do a series of statues articulating the concept "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life".