Film editor Dede Allen, left, and director Arthur Penn in 2006 in New York City. Allen got Oscar nominations for her work on Dog Day Afternoon, Wonder Boys and Reds. (Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)

Dorothea Carothers (Dede) Allen, a film editor acclaimed for her work on classic American movies such as Bonnie and Clyde, Dog Day Afternoon and The Hustler, has died at age 86.

Her son, Tom Fleischman, told the Los Angeles Times his mother passed away Saturday at her home in Los Angeles, days after suffering a stroke.

Allen is noted for shaping the look and sound of American movies.

A pioneer in her field, she became the first film editor in 1967 to get a sole credit on a movie — for Bonnie and Clyde, starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.

She was also nominated for Oscars for Dog Day Afternoon, Wonder Boys and Reds.

Allen edited or co-edited 20 major movies over four decades and collaborated with directors Arthur Penn, Sidney Lumet and George Roy Hill, and actor-directors Paul Newman, Warren Beatty and Robert Redford.

Allen embraced European methods of editing by beginning sequences with close-ups or jump cuts and then bleeding the sound under from the next shot while the previous scene was still on screen.

Born in Cincinnati on Dec. 3, 1923, Allen attended Scripps College in Claremont, Calif., but left school to take a job as a messenger at Columbia Pictures. She started working on television commercials before getting her big break in the late 1950s editing Robert Wise's Odds Against Tomorrow.

Allen was honoured in 1994 with an American Cinema Editors career achievement award. In November 2007 she received the Motion Picture Editors Guild's Fellowship and Service Award.