Person · Sound Department

Walter Murch

Born

July 12, 1943

From

New York City, New York, USA

Also:
Editor
Editorial Department

Credits on file

Decades active

Awards

In short · Working since 1894, 14 decades active, 57 credits, 3 Academy Award wins.

Known for

Ranked by community engagement + sustained interest across this person's credits in our database.

Now & next

1996
Award win
Academy Awards — Oscar — Film Editing
1996
Award win
Academy Awards — Oscar — Sound Mixing
1979
Award win
Academy Awards — Oscar — Sound Mixing

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Biography

Walter Murch has been editing sound in Hollywood since working on Francis Ford Coppola’s film *The Rain People* (1969). He edited sound on *American Graffiti* (1973) and *The Godfather Part II* (1974), received his first Academy Award nomination for *The Conversation* (1974), won his first Oscar for *Apocalypse Now* (1979), and earned a double Oscar for Best Sound and Best Film Editing for *The English Patient* (1996). He later assisted in reconstructing Orson Welles’s original notes for *Touch of Evil* (1958) and edited *The Talented Mr. Ripley* (1999). Murch was, along with George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, a founding member of Northern California cinema. He directed *Return to Oz* (1985) and has expressed interest in directing again; as an editor and sound professional he is widely recognized as a master in his field. For his work on *Apocalypse Now* (1979), Murch coined the term “sound designer,” and, together with colleagues such as Ben Burtt, contributed to advancing film sound.