Oscar Awards

Oscar Awards Home

Best Picture
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Best Animated Feature
Best Art Direction
Best Cinematography
Costume Design
Directing
Documentary Feature
Documentary Short Subject
Film Editing
Best Foreign Language Film
Makeup
Original Music Score
Best Song
Animated Short Film
Live Action Short Film
Sound
Sound Effects Editing
Visual Effects
Writing Adapted Screenplay
Writing Original Screenplay
Academy Juvenile Award
Academy Honorary Award
Academy Special Achievement Award
The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award
The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award

Academy Award for Sound Editing

The Academy Award of Merit for Best Sound Editing is an Academy Award granted yearly to a film exhibiting the finest or most aesthetic sound editing or sound design. The award is usually received by the Supervising Sound Editors of the film, perhaps accompanied by the Sound Designers. The Sound Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, like many of the other branches, selects its nominees at an informal gathering called the "Bake-Off" on the last Tuesday in the January following the qualifying year. At the Sound Bake-Off, highlight reels of films submitted for nomination are screened in a controlled theater environment. The screening is generally open to the public, but only sound branch members may vote, and the only occasion the sound branch members have for voting is at the Bake-Off. The rules for balloting have been changed often, but voting involves giving each film a subjective numerical score, based on the quality of the highlight reel. The scores for each are averaged, and if a minimum of three films score above a threshold (often 7 out of 10), those films are passed on to the entire Academy for voting as the Nominees. The nominees for Academy Award for Sound are selected at the same gathering. In some years, not enough films score above the threshold for official nomination; in that case, no films are nominated for Best Sound Editing, and a "Special Achievement" Oscar is granted to the highest-scoring film; when this has happened, it is indicated below. This is a list of films that have won or been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound Effects (1963-1967, 1975), Sound Effects Editing (1977, 1981-1999), or Sound Editing (1979, 2000-present). See Academy Award for Sound for a corresponding list of winners for Best Sound.

List of Winners

Year Winner
1963 It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World -- Walter G. Elliott
1964 Goldfinger -- Norman Wanstall
1965 The Great Race -- Tregoweth Brown
1966 Grand Prix -- Gordon Daniel
1967 The Dirty Dozen -- John Poyner
1968 none given
1969 none given
1970 none given
1971 none given
1972 none given
1973 none given
1974 none given
1975 The Hindenburg -- Peter Berkos (Special Achievement Award)
1976 none given
1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind -- Frank E. Warner (Special Achievement Award)
1978 none given
1979 The Black Stallion -- Alan Splet (Special Achievement Award)
1980 none given
1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark -- Ben Burtt, Richard L. Anderson (Special Achievement Award)
1982 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial -- Charles L. Campbell, Ben Burtt
1983 The Right Stuff -- Jay Boekelheide
1984 The River -- Kay Rose (Special Achievement Award)
1985 Back to the Future -- Charles L. Campbell, Robert Rutledge
1986 Aliens -- Don Sharpe
1987 RoboCop -- Stephen Flick, John Pospisil (Special Achievement Award)
1988 Who Framed Roger Rabbit -- Charles L. Campbell, Louis L. Edemann
1989 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade -- Ben Burtt, Richard Hymns
1990 The Hunt for Red October -- Cecelia Hall, George Watters II
1991 Terminator 2: Judgment Day -- Gary Rydstrom, Gloria S. Borders
1992 Bram Stoker's Dracula -- Tom C. McCarthy, David E. Stone
1993 Jurassic Park -- Gary Rydstrom, Richard Hymns
1994 Speed -- Stephen Hunter Flick
1995 Braveheart -- Lon Bender, Per Hallberg
1996 The Ghost and the Darkness -- Bruce Stambler
1997 Titanic -- Tom Bellfort, Christopher Boyes
1998 Saving Private Ryan -- Gary Rydstrom, Richard Hymns
1999 The Matrix -- Dane A. Davis
2000 U-571 -- Jon Johnson
2001 Pearl Harbor -- George Watters II, Christopher Boyes
2002 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers -- Ethan Van der Ryn, Michael Hopkins
2003 Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World -- Richard King
2004 The Incredibles -- Michael Silvers and Randy Thom
2005 King Kong --Mike Hopkins and Ethan Van der Ryn
2006 Letters from Iwo Jima — Alan Robert Murray, Bub Asman
2007 The Bourne Ultimatum – Karen Baker Landers and Per Hallberg
2008 Slumdog Millionaire – Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke, Resul Pookutty