His credits range from television"s Hogan"s Heroes to feature films directed by George C. Scott (The Savage is Loose) and Steven Spielberg, with whom he has had an extended, notable collaboration for more than thirty years. He is one of the few editors who still edits on film (though he has edited digitally on projects not directed by Spielberg). Kahn acknowledged "People find it hard to believe that Steven and I still edit film on a Moviola and a KEM. Steven feels that film got us where we are today and he loves the smell of it and feel of lieutenant
We started that way and both really enjoy lieutenant" George Lucas remarked "Michael Kahn can cut faster on a Moviola than anybody can cut on an Avid." The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn became the first film Kahn edited digitally using Avid for Spielberg, though he has edited digitally before for projects like Twister.
Kahn is the most-nominated editor in Academy Awards history with eight nominations. In addition Kahn holds the record for the most wins (three) in the category of the Academy Awards for Best Film Editing, tied with Thelma Schoonmaker, Daniel Mandell, and Ralph Dawson. All of the films for which he won Oscars were directed by Steven Spielberg: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Schindler"s List (1993), and Saving Private Ryan (1998). He has also received six British Academy of Film and Television Arts nominations for Best Editing, winning two for Schindler"s List and Fatal Attraction. Kahn has been selected for membership in the American Cinema Editors (American Council on Exercise). In 2011, he received the Career Achievement Award of the American Cinema Editors. At the ceremony, Steven Spielberg said of editing: "this is where filmmaking goes from a craft to an art".
