Best free video editing software

It's the first law of movie-making: no matter how expensive your camera, or how skilled you are at using it, your raw footage will always be rubbish. And so, if you're looking to add a little professional polish, then installing a video editor will be essential.
Commercial video editors can be very expensive, of course, but you may not have to go that far. Whether you want to trim your clips down to size, add a soundtrack or captions, apply transitions or special effects, there are some great free tools which can help - and these are the very best around.

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Note that a future version of this guide will include a list of online video editors as well since they have grown in popularity and have also managed to get powerful over time.
Also, if you're wondering what sort of PC you'll need to buy (or build) in order to easily crunch through heavier duty video editing tasks (or indeed image editing), then we've got you covered. We break down all the dos and don'ts when it comes to concocting the perfect video editing rig in our article: How to buy a PC for editing video and photos.
And if you're after a suggested budget build for your DIY rig, then look no further than: Build the best video editing PC possible for £500.