It is a common question people have as to which video editor should they go for once they want to move on up from Windows Movie Maker or iMovie.

The “big three” NLEs for indie filmmakers like ourselves are (and ranked in roughly their order of popularity):
Premiere Pro, Final Cut, Sony Vegas.

So naturally one of these three should be the first three you consider learning.

Final Cut is out of the question if you are on Windows PC, as it for Mac only. And out of Sony Vegas and Premiere Pro, I think Sony Vegas is easiest for a newbie to jump right into.

Two others to consider which are newcomers I reckon are ones to watch:
DaVinci Resolve (is a colour grading, but recently has been adding editing features which may make it a worthwhile NLE for people one day too) & HitFilm 3 Pro (is often viewed from the perspective as being the compositor to use with Sony Vegas, its After Effects in a sense. But is a worthwhile NLE in its own right too).

And the open source ones to check out are:
Blender, Jahshaka, and Lightworks (well…. Lightworks has claimed it will be open source “one day”. Maybe…).

There is a few others out there which I could perhaps add to this list, such as Avid and Edius. But I see them as more of a historical footnote with declining market share, so I wouldn’t invest the time in learning to use them unless you *must* (for instance you start a new job where you must use it, because everybody else in your office).