Joel Cox

Joel Cox (born April 2, 1942) is an American film editor. He is best known for collaborating with Clint Eastwood in 33 films.

Cox has been working in film since appearing as a baby in Random Harvest (1942). He started in the mailroom at Warner Bros. in 1961. Rudi Fehr, a well-known editor and executive at Warner Bros., made Cox an apprentice editor about 3 years later. As was common in the era, Cox worked as an uncredited assistant for several years. His first credit as an assistant editor was for The Rain People, which was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and edited by Barry Malkin. His first credit as the editor was for Farewell, My Lovely (1975), which was directed by Dick Richards and co-edited by the veteran editor Walter A. Thompson. Cox had just finished working as Thompson's assistant on Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins (1975), which was also directed by Richards. Cox worked on two more of Richards' films, March or Die (1977—as assistant editor) and Death Valley (1982).

Cox has had a notable collaboration with Clint Eastwood that commenced with the 1976 film The Outlaw Josey Wales, for which Cox was Ferris Webster's assistant. Cox and Webster were co-editors on The Gauntlet (1977) and on several more of Eastwood's subsequent films. Starting with Sudden Impact (1983), Cox became Eastwood's principal editor. Cox has been quoted as saying that, over their 30-year partnership, Eastwood has recut only a single scene that Cox put together. Gary D. Roach, who worked as Cox's assistant from the mid-1990s, became Cox's co-editor on Eastwood's films with Letters from Iwo Jima (2006). Cox's long streak editing each of Eastwood's films ended with Sully, which was edited by another of his former assistants, Blu Murray.