- TCM schedule – Feb. 19: The series “31 Days of Oscar” continues with six Best Film Editing Academy Award contenders and four titles featuring performers playing teenage characters, including Rebel Without a Cause, The Last Picture Show, and The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.
TCM schedule – ‘31 Days of Oscar’ Day 19: Fast-paced Best Film Editing contenders and 4 titles featuring nominated ‘teens’
Turner Classic Movies’ 2025 edition of “31 Days of Oscar” continues on Wednesday, Feb. 19, with the airing of six Best Film Editing contenders/winners, in addition to four titles featuring Oscar-nominated performers – however absurdly – cast as teenagers. (See further below the TCM schedule on Feb. 19. Most titles will remain available for a while on the Watch TCM app.)
The fact that all six Best Film Editing entries listed below feature action scenes is no coincidence. Best Film Editing – like Best Sound Recording/Editing – is one of those categories that all too often are dominated by movies in which the techno-artistic accomplishments call attention to themselves.
In other words, the faster the pacing, the quicker the cuts, the more noticeable (“better”) the editing, hence a nomination (especially for well-regarded titles). Or the louder the music, the racing cars, the explosions, the more noticeable (“better”) the sound, hence a nomination (generally speaking, irrespective of the film’s critical reception).
Admittedly, things seem to have changed somewhat in the last two decades or so, with releases like Precious, The King’s Speech, Moonlight, The Shape of Water, The Favourite, and Parasite getting shortlisted in the Best Film Editing category.
The winners, however, chosen by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences members of all branches, still tend to consist of fare like Slumdog Millionaire, The Hurt Locker, Hacksaw Ridge, Dunkirk, Bohemian Rhapsody, Ford v Ferrari, and Dune.
Below are brief comments about each TCM presentation.
Air Force (1943)
George Amy won the Best Film Editing Academy Award for his work on Howard Hawks’ nearly all-male flag-waver Air Force.
This is the sort of movie that may have had its morale-/bloodlust-boosting place during World War II, but these days – except for the most gung-ho fans of war heroics – the 124-minute Air Force is only of marginal interest as a historical piece.
Odd Man Out (1947)
Fergus McDonell became the first individual nominated in the Oscars’ Best Film Editing category for work on a non-American motion picture: Carol Reed’s British-made Odd Man Out, starring a capable James Mason as an Irish Nationalist fleeing the police following a deadly robbery. McDonell, as it turned out, was Odd Man Out’s sole nominee.
An Odd Man Out plus: Robert Krasker’s masterful cinematography.
Z (1969)
Despite its blatant anti-gay stance, Costa-Gavras’ real-life-based anti-fascist political drama Z remains one of the finest in the genre.
Z became only the second non-English-language title to receive a Best Picture Academy Award nomination – 31 years after Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion – and the first to top the Best Film Editing category*. Editor: Françoise Bonnot, whose more recent credits include Julie Taymor’s Frida and The Tempest.
Additionally, the mostly French-made Z was the Oscars’ Best Foreign Language Film – representing Algeria. (France’s – eventually nominated – official entry that year was Éric Rohmer’s My Night with Maud.)
* No other non-English-language title has won Best Film Editing since Z, though the U.S. productions Traffic and Everything Everywhere All at Once have some non-English-language dialogue, and so does the mostly British-made Slumdog Millionaire.
The Dirty Dozen (1967)
Featuring an all-star cast, Robert Aldrich’s World War II action thriller The Dirty Dozen earned editor Michael Luciano an Oscar nomination.
Shortlisted in the Best Supporting Actor category was someone one would never associate with big-budget, shamelessly commercial Hollywood fare: John Cassavetes, better known as the screenwriter-director of low-budget independent fare like Faces, A Woman Under the Influence, and Opening Night.
John Poyner took home the Oscar for Best Sound Effects.
The Great Escape (1963)
A sizable box office hit, John Sturges’ World War II-set actioner earned one single Oscar nod for editor Ferris Webster. Steve McQueen and James Garner are two of the stars whose goal is to escape from the German stalag (prisoner-of-war camp) where they are being held.
A decade later, McQueen would again try to escape from prison, but the one located on Devil’s Island. See Franklin J. Schaffner’s Papillon.
Bullitt (1968)
After mentioning earlier in this article how eye-catching film editing has historically had an unfair edge when it comes to the Academy Awards, we come out to say that Peter Yates’ Bullitt fully deserved the Best Film Editing Oscar (Frank P. Keller) for its brilliantly put together chase sequence through the twisted streets and slopes of San Francisco.
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
The real romance in Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause blossoms not between James Dean and Natalie Wood, but between Dean and Sal Mineo. But none of that matters if you have trouble believing Dean as a teen. Or, for that matter, as a real character, regardless of age.
Both Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo were shortlisted in the Oscars’ supporting categories. James Dean was posthumously nominated for his star-making turn in Elia Kazan’s East of Eden. They lost to, respectively, Jo Van Fleet (East of Eden), Jack Lemmon (Mister Roberts), and Ernest Borgnine (Marty).
The Last Picture Show (1971)
“Hell, Texas” would have been an apt title for Peter Bogdanovich’s early 1950s-set black-and-white drama* The Last Picture Show,** based on a 1966 semi-autobiographical novel by Larry McMurtry (who decades later would co-adapt Brokeback Mountain with Diana Ossana).
Four of the film’s principals were shortlisted for Oscars in the supporting categories: Cloris Leachman, Ellen Burstyn, Ben Johnson, and Jeff Bridges. Leachman, as a married middle-aged woman having an affair with a teenager,† and Johnson, as the owner of the local (Anarene, Texas) moribund movie theater, took home the statuettes.
Unfairly left out: Leading man Timothy Bottoms, whose poignant performance as Leachman’s troubled adolescent lover is one of the movie’s highlights. That same year, Bottoms was equally effective in Dalton Trumbo’s harrowing antiwar, antimilitary drama Johnny Got His Gun.
Also directed by Peter Bogdanovich, a far inferior color sequel, Texasville, was released in 1990.
* Following the advent of color television in the mid-to-late 1960s, black-and-white U.S. movies became increasingly rare.
** Howard Hawks’ 1948 Western Red River is the titular last picture show.
† Shades of Deborah Kerr – whose husband, like Leachman’s, is also a sports coach – and John Kerr in Tea and Sympathy.
American Graffiti (1973)
Before George Lucas became associated with galaxies far, far away, he was known as the director of the earthbound sleeper blockbuster (in the United States) and Best Picture nominee American Graffiti, a comedy-drama set in 1962 Modesto, California.
The story of one night in the lives of various Modestoans on the cusp of adulthood, you may find American Graffiti immensely funny/moving or as artificial as Breaking Away, Diner, and MGM’s old Andy Hardy movies starring Mickey Rooney.
Either way, if you’re easily amused you’ll enjoy watching Richard Dreyfuss (in his mid-20s at the time), Harrison Ford (in his early 30s), Cyndi Williams (in her mid-20s), and Suzanne Somers (in her late 20s) before they became bigger names.
The only American Graffiti cast member to be singled out come Oscar time was Candy Clark, in her mid-teens at the time but cast as a 12-year-old, who was shortlisted in the Best Supporting Actress category.
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968)
Alan Arkin wasn’t always the most subtle of actors – see, for instance, his Oscar-winning performance in Little Miss Sunshine (2006) – but it’s hard to find anything to complain about his characterization of a kind-hearted deaf-mute in Robert Ellis Miller’s moving drama The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.
Before she became involved with Clint Eastwood on and off screen, Best Supporting Actress nominee Sondra Locke proved to be a sensitive actress.
Immediately below is TCM’s “31 Days of Oscar” movie schedule on Feb. 19.
‘31 Days of Oscar’: TCM schedule (EST) – Feb. 19
5:45 AM Air Force (1943)
Director: Howard Hawks.
Cast: John Ridgely, Gig Young, Arthur Kennedy, Charles Drake, Harry Carey, George Tobias, Ray Montgomery, James Brown, Ward Wood, Stanley Ridges, Faye Emerson.
124m8:00 AM Odd Man Out (1947)
Director: Carol Reed.
Cast: James Mason, Robert Newton, Kathleen Ryan, Cyril Cusack, William Hartnell, Faye Compton, Denis O’Dea, Robert Beatty, Dan O’Herlihy.
116m10:00 AM Z (1969)
Director: Costa-Gavras.
Cast: Yves Montand, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Irene Papas, Jacques Perrin, Pierre Dux, Charles Denner, François Périer, Marcel Bozzuffi, Magali Noël, Renato Salvatori, Jean Dasté.
125m12:15 PM The Dirty Dozen (1967)
Director: Robert Aldrich.
Cast: Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, John Cassavetes, Jim Brown, Richard Jaeckel, George Kennedy, Trini López, Ralph Meeker, Robert Ryan, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland, Clint Walker, Robert Webber.
149m3:00 PM The Great Escape (1963)
Director: John Sturges.
Cast: Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, James Donald, Donald Pleasence, James Coburn, Hannes Messemer, David McCallum, Gordon Jackson.
172m6:00 PM Bullitt (1968)
Director: Peter Yates.
Cast: Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Jacqueline Bisset, Don Gordon, Robert Duvall, Simon Oakland, Norman Fell.
114m8:00 PM Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Director: Nicholas Ray.
Cast: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus, Ann Doran, William Hopper, Rochelle Hudson, Corey Allen, Dennis Hopper.
111m10:00 PM The Last Picture Show (1971)
Director: Peter Bogdanovich.
Cast: Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman, Ellen Burstyn, Eileen Brennan, Clu Gulager, Sam Bottoms, Randy Quaid, Gary Brockette, John Hillerman.
118m12:15 AM American Graffiti (1973)
Director: George Lucas.
Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips, Cindy Williams, Bo Hopkins, Harrison Ford, Kathleen Quinlan, Kay Lenz, Suzanne Somers.
109m2:15 AM The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968)
Director: Robert Ellis Miller.
Cast: Alan Arkin, Sondra Locke, Stacy Keach, Laurinda Barrett, Chuck McCann, Biff McGuire, Percy Rodriguez, Cicely Tyson.
123m
“TCM Schedule: Best Film Editing Oscar, Teens” notes
“31 Days of Oscar” movie schedule via the TCM website.
Timothy Bottoms and Cloris Leachman The Last Picture Show image: Columbia Pictures.
“TCM Schedule: Best Film Editing Oscar, Teens” last modified in August 2025.