When it comes to receiving public acclaim, being a movie editor is a thankless job. Despite the fact that making a movie is a very collaborative process, directors are frequently praised as the film’s author. Regardless of how obvious their effort is to the audience, everyone from the special effects team to the lighting crew to the performers contributes significantly to the film’s final product. Editors are no different; their work significantly influences a movie’s pacing and mood. Because editors are rarely interchangeable and you want to keep onto a good fit when you find one, many directors and editors frequently collaborate.
There is an even greater tendency to disregard the efforts of women editors. Men are given more work and credit than women of colour, as is the case with most roles in the movie business. This does not imply that there are no female film editors, though. It’s time to acknowledge the numerous iconic women who have played these roles. Here are 17 editors who you should be aware of; keep in mind that this is just a small sample.
Carol Littleton
Carol Littleton is a different editor who has collaborated with Spielberg. Body Heat, directed by Lawrence Kasdan, was her debut feature film and the start of a fruitful partnership between the two. Her reputation was subsequently greatly helped by her editing of Spielberg’s E.T. After that, Littleton and Kasdan collaborated on a number of films, including The Big Chill, which starred Jeff Goldblum and Glenn Close, Silverado, and the Dreamcatcher adaption of Stephen King, to mention a few. In addition to these partnerships, Littleton has shown a wide breadth of talent with films including The Other Boleyn Girl, The Manchurian Candidate, and Margot at the Wedding.
Dede Allen
The five youngsters enjoying themselves while evading detentionIncorporated Pictures
Dede Allen, an editor who worked from the 1940s to the early 2000s, is listed in the credits of an astonishing amount of classic films. She collaborated with filmmaker Elia Kazan early in her career on the Best Picture candidate America America. Shortly after, she worked as an editor on the Oscar-nominated classic Bonnie and Clyde. Slaughterhouse-Five, Dog Day Afternoon, The Breakfast Club, and The Addams Family are a few of Allen’s other notable films. It’s simple to understand how big her contribution to cinema was given that these are only a few of the films she appeared in throughout a lengthy career.
Dody Dorn
Four Dody Dorn MemosThe experimental, loosely structured 1990s film Floundering, starring Ethan Hawke, was Dody Dorn’s debut full-length film and it immediately distinguished her from the competition. A few years later, Dorn edited Memento, one of Christopher Nolan’s debut films as a filmmaker. Memento was another experimental film, but it told the tale in both the present and the past. On the similarly intriguing but less complex film Insomnia, Dorn and Nolan teamed up once more. She has also collaborated with directors like Zack Snyder and Baz Luhrmann on films like Army of the Dead and Justice League.
Jennifer Lame
Editor Jennifer Lame has an impressive filmography. She has worked on everything from independent classics like Frances Ha and Manchester by the Sea to action films like Tenet and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. She explained how every decision she made while working on Tenet to Le Cinema Club had to be about “moving the story and momentum forward — not just making an exciting flashy scene, but also a scene that embodies the movie and characters as a whole.” The careful planning that goes into these complex action scenes demonstrates the value of an editor; it takes more than merely aligning the scenes.
Jill Bilcock
An editor who can handle any production, whether it’s a family film or an introspective period drama, is Jill Bilcock. Strictly Ballroom, which served as Bilcock’s debut in a significant editing role, marked the beginning of her work with Baz Luhrmann. Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge! were also produced by the duo. After Strictly Ballroom, Bilcock worked as an editor on the Toni Collette-starring cult hit Muriel’s Wedding. She also contributed to the Shekhar Kapur-helmed Elizabeth films, which also starred Cate Blanchett. Later, she revised The Young Victoria by Jean Marc Vallée.
Joi McMillon
Joi McMillon is the first Black woman to be nominated for an Oscar in the editing category. After working as an editor for a number of short films, McMillon began contributing to television programmes like Girls and Anne & Jake. She then started working with Barry Jenkins, starting with the film Moonlight, for which she was nominated for an Oscar. Their collaboration has now covered both The Underground Railroad and If Beale Street Could Talk. Additionally, McMillon edited Barry Jenkins’ remarkable Zola, which contrasted with Barry Jenkins’ favoured leisurely depicted stories by being a brilliantly told story with a quick, tense pace.
Juliette Welfling
Juliette Welfling has a diverse resume that includes everything from independent French films to big-budget Hollywood productions. She has worked with Jacques Audiard the most frequently, and she has edited all of his films, including Dheepan, Paris, 13th District, and Rust and Bone. Welfling, however, is a very accomplished editor who has contributed to other endeavours in addition to her work with Audiard. She edited the first film in The Hunger Games series and Ocean’s 8, two high-budget Hollywood films that, despite their Hollywood backgrounds, had distinctive and fascinating visual styles. Welfling’s brilliant editing of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly earned her another Oscar.
Lisa Fruchtman
Editor Lisa Fruchtman has contributed to a wide range of projects, including dramas, romantic comedies, and music documentaries. The Grateful Dead, which depicts a concert by the band in the 1970s, was the first full-length film she edited. She collaborated with Francis Ford Coppola on Apocalypse Now shortly after, getting her first Oscar nomination. After editing Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate, she went on to edit Philip Kaufman’s The Right Stuff, which won her an Oscar. On The Godfather Part III, Fruchtman and Coppola worked together again. Later, she worked as an editor on Julia Roberts’ renowned romantic comedy My Best Friend’s Wedding.
Lisa Lassek
Lisa Lassek is a film editor who first entered the field by working in television. When she served as an editor for his produced television series Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she became friends with Joss Whedon. Then Lassek collaborated with Whedon on the feature-length film Serenity, which starred Nathan Fillion and Gina Torres and was both of their first full-length efforts. Later, the two collaborated on The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron. Lassek also occasionally collaborated with director Drew Goddard on The Cabin in the Woods and Bad Times at the El Royale.
Mathilde Bonnefoy
Mathilde Bonnefoy is a dependable engaging and forward-thinking editor. Her first editing job was on the unusual film Run Lola Run, which depicts three possible outcomes from a single initial setting. Run Lola Run made Bonnefoy into a fearless editorial voice by demonstrating how crucial the editor’s activities are in this scenario. Tom Tykwer, who directed this film, and Claire Bonnefoy have continued to regularly collaborate over the years, contributing to films like Heaven and The International. Additionally, Bonnefoy edited the Edward Snowden-focused documentary Citizenfour, which won an Oscar.
Margaret Sixel
Mad Max: Fury Road Hardy and TheronAnother editor with a reliable directorial partner is Margaret Sixel of Warner Bros., who won an Oscar for editing. George Miller’s Babe: Pig in the City was the first significant film she edited. With Happy Feet, she carried on the animal motif while utilising animation. With Mad Max: Fury Road, Sixel and Miller’s subsequent collaboration, they took a radically different approach. All the way to winning the Oscar, Sixel handled this change in tone and manner with ease. Following that, Sixel and Miller collaborated on Thee Thousand Years of Longing, another action film with lots of quick cuts.
Mary Sweeney
Mary Sweeney is a writer, producer, and editor who solely works on films that she or David Lynch have directed. Episodes of the TV series Twin Peaks, On the Air, and Hotel Room were directed by Sweeney. Together, they produced an extraordinary collection of films, including Mulholland Drive, The Straight Story, Lost Highway, and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. We don’t talk about messages or what anything means, Sweeney explains in an interview with Matt Fagerholm for Roger Ebert. We all operate in the same manner. From the time we read the script, we immediately locked into it. This demonstrates the value of finding colleagues who share your values and explains why directors and editors frequently collaborate.
Sally Menke
Oscar-nominated film editor Sally Menke was active from the 1980s until her passing in 2010. The films she worked on with Quentin Tarantino over a lengthy period of time include Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, the Kill Bill films, and Inglorious Basterds. Tarantino is renowned for having a highly distinct style in his films, a style that is mostly derived from the way sequences are stitched together and would have been different if Menke hadn’t been involved. This only serves to highlight how directors are frequently given more credit than their team members, especially given that he is a male filmmaker working with a female editor.
Sandra Adair
Another Oscar-nominated editor, Sandra Adair is most recognised for her collaborations with director Richard Linklater. Dazed and Confused was the first, and it was both of their breakthrough successes. After then, Adair edited practically every film Linklater made, regardless of the film’s stylistic differences. They collaborated on the Before trilogy, School of Rock, and even the experimental Waking Life, but Adair’s Oscar nomination came from the decade-spanning film Boyhood. Adair frequently edits documentaries like At the Fork, A Single Frame, and Shepard & Dark when she isn’t working with Linklater.
Thelma Schoonmaker
Thelma Schoonmaker is one of the most celebrated and distinguished editors in history. She has had three Oscar nominations and three victories. Since his debut feature Who’s That Knocking at My Door, she has collaborated with Martin Scorsese. The pair reconnected for Raging Bull after a brief hiatus, and they have since collaborated on practically everything, including documentaries and music videos like Michael Jackson’s “Bad.”
Verna Fields
is a legend of the “New Hollywood” era of film. Fields worked with a larger variety of directors than the aforementioned editors, who each had a primary director with whom they worked. She appeared in Studs Lonigan, one of Jack Nicholson’s debut appearances, which was released in 1960. She collaborated with Peter Bogdanovich on the films Paper Moon and Daisy Miller in the beginning of the 1970s. Later, she collaborated with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas on the films American Graffiti, The Sugarland Express, and Jaws.
Veronika Jenet
Early in their careers, Veronika Jenet and director Jane Campion collaborated. They became friends while attending the Australian Film, Television, and Radio School as students. They worked together on films including Sweetie, which was each of their debut full-length film, The Piano, and Portrait of a Lady. Jenet deliberately avoids working outside of Australia and New Zealand, thus her filmography is a fantastic place to look for intriguing work from both nations. Jenet most recently edited all six episodes of The Luminaries, a miniseries based on the novel by Eleanor Catton.
