Best Film Editing Oscar Winner 2009

- Winner: Slumdog Millionaire
- Nominations decided by 223 members of the Academy's editing branch
- First winner: Conrad Nerving for Eskimo and Mala the Magnificent in 1934
- 2007 winner: Christopher Rouse for The Bourne Ultimatum
- Ultimatum had 37 cuts in its first minute of footage
- Rouse had also been nominated in 2007 for United 93
- Michael Kahn, a frequent collaborator with Steven Spielberg has received 7 Oscar nominations, the most of any editor in history
- 4 editors have won 3 Oscars - Kahn, Thelma Schoonmaker, Daniel Mandell and Ralph Dawson
- Editing is sometimes called the "invisible art"
- Last film to win Best Picture without receiving an editing nomination was Ordinary People in 1980

The Oscar for Best Editing was given to Slumdog Millionaire at the 81st Annual Academy Awards ceremony, held February 22, 2009, at Los Angeles' Kodak Theater. Though numerous professionals typically take part in the editing of a feature film, only the main editor (sometimes called the "above the line" editor) is eligible for the award. Often, winning editors will recognize their assistants, supervising editors and other colleagues in acceptance speeches.
2008 Editing Nominees
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
- The Dark Knight: Lee Smith
- Frost/Nixon: Mike Hill and Dan Hanley
- Milk: Elliot Graham
- Slumdog Millionaire: Chris Dickens - Winner
Recent Winners
- 2007: Christopher Rouse, The Bourne Ultimatum
- The third installment in the Matt Damon "Jason Bourne" film trilogy also won Oscars for Best Sound and Best Sound Editing. It is the only film in the Bourne trilogy to win or be nominated for Academy Awards.
- 2006: Thelma Schoonmaker, The Departed
- Martin Scorsese's long-time collaborator won her 3rd Oscar, tying the all-time record, for this hyperkinetic crime thriller.
- 2005: Hughes Winborne, Crash
- Brokeback Mountain had been the favorite to win Best Picture in 2005, but had not been nominated for Best Film Editing. Crash ended up winning in the Editing category and then carrying the momentum into a surprise Best Picture win.
- 2004: Thelma Schoonmaker, The Aviator
- This was Schoonmaker's second win after 1980's Raging Bull, also directed by Scorsese. The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won five. Best Picture went to Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby
- 2003: Jamie Selkirk, The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
- Selkirk, who has worked with director Peter Jackson since the 1980s, co-produced all three films in the Lord of the Rings series. Though he had initially intended to edit all 3 films himself, he only served as a supervising editor for the first two films. Editors John Gilbert and Michael Horton were nominated for their work on Fellowship of the Ring and Two Towers, but Selkirk is the only one of the 3 to have won the Oscar for the trilogy.
- 2002: Martin Walsh, Chicago
- Walsh's editing win was one of six Oscars picked up by Chicago, including Best Picture. It was the first musical to win Best Film Editing since All That Jazz in 1979. Coincidentally, Jazz tells the life story of director and choreographer Bob Fosse, who wrote the book for the Chicago stage musical.
- 2001: Pietro Scalia, Black Hawk Down
- Ridley Scott's gritty, gruesome recreation of the Battle of Mogadishu won Oscars for Best Editing and Best Sound. Scalia had previously won an Editing Oscar ten years earlier, for Oliver Stone's JFK.
- 2000: Stephen Mirrione, Traffic
- In addition to Mirrione's win, Traffic picked up trophies for Steven Soderbergh's direction, Benicio Del Toro's supporting performance and Stephen Gaghan's adapted screenplay. Mirrione was again nominated in 2006 for his editing work on Babel, but lost that year to Themla Schoonmaker.
Correlation with Best Picture

Since 1981, every film that has gone on to win the Best Picture award has also been nominated for Best Film Editing. In fact, in the history of the Academy Awards, dating back to the 1920s, only nine films have ever won Best Picture without earning an editing nomination. They are Ordinary People, It Happened One Night, The Life of Emile Zola, Hamlet (the 1948 version), Marty, Tom Jones, A Man for All Seasons, The Godfather, Part II and Annie Hall.
ACE Eddie Awards
The American Cinema Editors organization gives out its own awards each year, known as the "Eddies." The "Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic)" nominees included the same five nominees as the Best Film Editing Oscar category, with the award going to Chris Dickens for Slumdog Millionaire. "Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy or Musical)" went to WALL-E, with the nominees including In Bruges, Mamma Mia, Tropic Thunder and Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Other 2009 Eddie Winners included the 30 Rock episode "Reunion," the pilot for the series Breaking Bad, an episode of the HBO series True Blood, the HBO original film Recount, the 24: Redemption TV movie and the documentary Man on Wire.