When iconic director John Waters is one of your honorees and your awards are hosted by drag queen Nina West, you know it’s going to be a day to remember. That was certainly the case at the 74th annual ACE Eddie Awards held at UCLA’s Royce Hall Sunday afternoon.
The American Cinema Editors awards also cemented “Oppenheimer’s” status as the top film of the season, as editor Jennifer Lame, ACE took the top prize for Best Edited Feature Film – Drama/Theatrical for her work on director Christopher Nolan’s opus about the inventor of the first atomic bomb.
In the Comedy/Theatrical Best Edited Feature Film category, the trophy went to Kevin Trent, ACE for “The Holdovers,” director Alexander Payne’s 1970s-set story of a curmudgeonly boarding school teacher stuck at the school over the holidays with one of his students.
There wins put both films into frontrunner status for the Oscars Best Film Editing, where they are nominated along with “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Poor Things” and ”Anatomy of a Fall.”
Also winning top film honors was “Spider-Man: Across The Spiderverse,” which took the Best Edited Animated Feature Film award and “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie,” which was awarded Best Edited Documentary (Theatrical).
In the television categories, FX’s “The Bear” and CBS’ “How I Met Your Father” took the trophies on the comedy side and HBO’s “The Last of Us” won on the drama side.
Waters, the director of films including “Pink Flamingos” and “Serial Mom,” received the ACE Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year Award, which recognizes a filmmaker who exemplifies distinguished achievement in the art and business of film.
Three-time Oscar winner Walter Murch and Emmy nominee Kate Amend were ACE’s 2024 Career Achievement recipients, and the Heritage Award was presented to veteran TV editor Stephen Lovejoy.
Here is a complete list of the winners winners:
Best Edited Feature Film (Drama, Theatrical):
“Oppenheimer”
Jennifer Lame, ACE
Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy, Theatrical):
“The Holdovers”
Kevin Tent, ACE
Best Edited Animated Feature Film
“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”
Michael Andrews, ACE
Best Edited Documentary (Theatrical):
“Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie”
Michael Harte, ACE
Best Edited (Non-Theatrical):
“Escaping Twin Flames”: “Up in Flames”
Martin Biehn
Kevin Hibbard
Inbal B. Lessner, ACE
Troy Takaki, ACE
Mimi Wilcox
Best Edited Multi-Camera Comedy Series
“How I Met Your Father”: “Daddy”
Russell Griffin, ACE
Best Edited Single Camera Comedy Series
“The Bear”:“Fishes”
Joanna Naugle, ACE
Best Edited Drama Series
“The Last of Us”: “Long, Long Time”
Timothy A. Good, ACE
Best Edited Feature Film (Non-Theatrical):
“Reality”
Jennifer Vecchiarello
Best Edited Limited Series:
“Beef”: “The Birds Don’t Sing, They Screech in Pain”
Harry Yoon, ACE
Laura Zempel, ACE
Best Edited Non-Scripted Series:
“Couples Therapy”: “Episode 310”
Delaney Lynch
Helen Kearns, ACE
Katrina Taylor
Best Edited Variety Talk/Sketch Show or Special:
“Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour”
Dom Whitworth
Guy Harding
Hamish Lyons
Rupa Rathod
Ben Wainwright-Pearce
Reg Wrench
Best Edited Animated Series:
“Blue Eye Samurai”: “The Tale of the Ronin and The Bride”
Yuka Shirasuna
