Michael J. Horton is a film editor who works primarily in New Zealand. He was nominated for an Academy Award for the 2002 film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers that was directed by Peter Jackson.Horton was born in Lower Hutt, Wellington, in New Zealand. He was educated at Saint Patricks College in Wellington. He began working as a film editor with the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation in the mid-sixties. He began working with the director Geoff Murphy in the 1970s.