Best Film Editing: Ranking Every 96th Academy Award Nominee
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
This article is a part of the Academy Awards Project, where Andreas Babiolakis from Films Fatale ranks every Oscar nominee from worst to best, and goes through every category once a day five days a week.
We’ve reached our first technical category of the year, and it’s quite a major one: Best Film Editing. The difficulty with good film editing is that you aren’t really supposed to notice it. Great film editors compile the raw footage that they’re presented with, turn it into something fluid, and aim to not be distracting while one watches a feature film. If an editor has done their job right, your brain and eyes will be able to ignore the cuts and transitions from shot to shot and scene to scene. Having said that, the best editors may try to break the rules a little bit by using cuts and transitions to their advantage, either for specific statements, to create sensations and moods, or other powerful reasons. We’ve got a handful of well edited films this year, even though my own personal choice didn’t make the cut (more on that shortly). Which films trimmed the fat off of their scenes the best? Which editors used cutting to present new information in each shot? Which films used cuts to create comedic timing, or to create a better flow of information?
Here are your nominees for Best Film Editing ranked from worst to best.
Biggest Snub: The Zone of Interest-Paul Watts
It’s shocking that The Zone of Interest isn’t here. It’s quite honestly one of the best-edited films of the twenty-first century. The cuts are so precise that characters walking in and out of frame begin to look like they are moving fluidly without hesitation as if we are an omnipresent being scrutinizing them from beyond. Every time there is a cut, there is new information or perspectives on the screen. Either that or cuts are used to cause uneasiness within you. Either way, every cut matters. Every shot is spliced together magnificently. No question, The Zone of Interest should be here. Unfortunately, the Academy usually overlooks films without dynamic, in-your-face editing, be it in action films or Oscar-based productions. Not a single nominee below is bad, but The Zone of Interest is brilliantly edited.
Contradictorily, I cannot include an actual scene from the film to showcase its editing in action (none seem available online legally) but have the official trailer anyway just because it’s better than nothing.
5. The Holdovers-Kevin Tent
The Holdovers is well-edited, but I also have to rank a film last. The cuts here are used greatly for comedic timing, while long pauses add to the dramatic side of this film. Kevin Tent makes the most of the shots that The Holdovers has to offer by creating relationships between image A and image B, whether it’s a disgruntled kid cutting to a curmudgeonous teacher taking delight in the procrastinator’s failures. I don’t think the editing here is exemplary, but it is quite great. Could the Academy have replaced The Holdovers with an even stronger candidate? Sure. Is it bad that The Holdovers is here? No. Its runtime zips by, and the ebbs and flows between comedy and drama are well handled (while also not being so drastically different that The Holdovers feels like two different films). I just had to place one nominee last, and it happened to be this one.
4. Anatomy of a Fall-Laurent Sénéchal
I’m actually a huge fan of the editing in Anatomy of a Fall, and am pleased to see it made its way into the final five for Best Film Editing. There are long pauses, sure, but that’s because the editor — Laurent Sénéchal — allows for them to take place. It feels like we cut to the right person at the right time almost always (dependent on when someone is speaking, another person visibly reacts, a witness is anxious during a heightened scene, et cetera). The cuts are sparingly used otherwise to jump from different pieces of visual information or to create tension within a scene. Essentially, the particularity of Sénéchal’s editing is what makes it so strong; when it comes to editing, oftentimes you can believe in the rule that too many ingredients can spoil the casserole. These two-and-a-half hours zip by. I never felt uneasy cutting between evidence, one’s thoughts, or the real world in this film.
3. Killers of the Flower Moon-Thelma Schoonmaker
I’m not gonna say no to Thelma Schoonmaker — the greatest film editor of all time — getting recognized. I think people love to play the card that Killers of the Flower Moon is nearly four hours so it can’t be well edited (why isn’t it shorter?), but that’s precisely why Schoonmaker should be here. Consider how well the film moves and how it doesn’t feel as long as it is. Killers of the Flower Moon always feels exciting or compelling. Not once did I feel like there was a lull or a slow spot. I know people like to point out the climactic courtroom sequences and how they could have maybe been condensed into one scene; I see this as the mind games played by guilt-ridden souls. Then arrives the shockingly unorthodox final sequences that come from nowhere, and Schoonmaker makes them feel both surprising and attached to the epic we have been watching for many hours. That isn’t as easy as you may think it is for an editor to pull off.
2. Poor Things-Yorgos Mavropsaridis
Some editors have the best bonds with their directors, and Yorgos Mavropsaridis somehow turns all of Yorgos Lanthimos’ insane visions and makes them work. Take note of how many unusual shots — particularly all those that use fisheye lens — were presented to Mavropsaridis, and how effortlessly he incorporates them together to make a seamless story. Don’t forget the electricity of Poor Things and the sharp comedic timing that makes hilarity stem from the absurd (a worse editor would likely stumble with this footage and make the film feel more awkward than the riot that it is). Even amidst all of the madness, the editing always highlights new information; in the scene above, notice how the alarming cacophony is a foreign sound until Mavropsaridis finally decides to show us the instrument emitting these calamitous noises and letting us know that this is diegetic sound. There’s something happening in every shot and there’s a reason for every cut. It’s a great use of order in a film that is so focused on abnormalcy.
1. Oppenheimer-Jennifer Lame
Outside of the aforementioned comedic timing, Oppenheimer possesses all of the strengths of the other nominees. It is a longer film that zips by. It makes the most of its dense material. You’re always cutting to new and pertinent information. There are moments where Jennifer Lame finesses her talents, like in the scene above (fortunately, not all of Oppenheimer is as zippily edited as this; again, there is a time and a place to flex muscles, and Lame knew exactly when). The tension throughout Oppenheimer is mostly thanks to Lame’s precision in the cinematic waiting game: building up to the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Another factor to not omit is how the film bounces between its two storylines (fission and fusion); Lame knows when to create parallels between both narratives, and when to allow one to outweigh the other. No question about it: Oppenheimer is a sublimely edited film.
Who I Want To Win: I’m fond of all of these films and how they are edited, so I’d honestly be okay with anyone winning. As to not be a coward, I’ll pick one film that I want to win, and that’s the current frontrunner, Oppenheimer.
Who I Think Will Win: Unless something changes, Oppenheimer is proving to be an award-sweeping film that will likely pick up most of the trophies it is nominated for, and its selection in Best Film Editing likely won’t prove to be any different. Oppenheimer will probably clean up most of the technical and production categories it is nominated for including this one.
The Academy Awards Project will continue on Monday with another category. We’re going to rank every single nominee in every single category, Monday through Friday. You don’t want to miss it!
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.