2023 Best Film Editing Nominees

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links and we receive a commission if you visit a link and buy something on our recommendation. Purchasing via an affiliate link doesn’t cost you any extra and the opinions expressed in this post are the author's own. For more details see our disclosure policy and privacy policy.

This is probably one of the categories that I have the least insight on so far this Oscar season. As of this writing I have only seen two of the three films, but hoping to catch Elvis and Banshees this weekend as both are available on HBOMax.

Looking into some background on this category for this post, I learned that there was a 33-year period from 1981 to 2013 where every Best Picture winner was also nominated for the Best Film Editing category, with about a third of them winning the Editing prize as well. This year the category is filled with first time nominees, with only one receiving their second nomination.

The Banshees of Inisherin

Mikkel E. G. Nielsen is now a two-time Oscar nominee in the Best Film Editing category, after winning the aware on his first nomination two years ago for Sound of Metal. Nielsen is only on his fifth feature as film editor and first with Banshees director Martin McDonagh.

---

Elvis

From what I’ve seen of this film, I can tell why it was nominated for this category. Matt Villa and Jonathan Redmond and receive their first nomination for editing and some of the fast-paced cuts are something else. Timing those cuts to many of Elvis’s best loved songs was surely no small feat and both Villa and Redmond worked with director Baz Luhrmann on The Great Gatsby.

---

Everything Everywhere All at Once

I can attest to the tremendous editing of this film firsthand. There are some amazingly fast sequences cut together within a single universe, but even more impressive are the sequences cut together with multiple perspectives in play on screen at the same time. I also have to mention the restraint during sequences like the conversation between Evelyn and Joy in the rock universe, allowing the scene to play out with just the “conversation” telling the story. I would love to see editor Paul Rogers take home the Oscar for Best Film Editing.

---

Tár

Perhaps the longest working name on this list is Monika Willi with editing credits going back to 1997. This is her first recognition by the Academy though she previously worked on the Academy Award nominated film The White Ribbon.

---

Top Gun: Maverick

If anyone on the list has made a name for editing fast-paced action flicks, it’s Eddie Hamilton. He has worked on the two most recent Mission Impossible films as well as Kingsman: The Secret Service and Kingsman: The Golden Circle. He also edited for Guy Ritchie’s film Swept Away. Even with that vast body of work, this is his first nomination from the Academy and I think another strong front runner to receive the award with all of the quick cutting aerial battles in this film.

---