For the Free stuff:
-if your on a Mac the good thing is you get imovie to work with. amazingly simple to use.
-if your on PC you have windows Movie Maker 2. not as easy to use as iMovie. its just as powerful but your movies can only be exported to wmv. which is not as big a standard as quicktime.
of course their is good news for the PC Virtual Dub is an Open Source project video editor.
For the cheap:
-Adobe Premiere Elements.
the dumbed down version of Adobe Premiere. its still powerful and easy to use
-Pinnacle Systems - Studio 10
-Ulead Systems - VideoStudio 9
Expensive programs:
on the expensive programs list you have Final Cut Pro which is no longer sold seperatley it is now sold as part of The Apple Studio suite. Final Cut Pro is a very cool app. it gives you alot of professional level tools yet it still stays an everyday consumer product because of its simplicity. its not as powerful as the BIG BOYS but can compete on some levels (documentaries, web videos, company videos)
THE BIG BOYS/INDUSTRY STANDARD/BIG BUXX/AVID:
Avid has always been the leader in the non linear video editing world. if your working on Movies your working in Avid, if your working on commercials your working on Avid,Music Videos Avid, Primetime TV series: Avid
the great things about Avid is the scalability I have been a long time Avid user (long time considering my young age of 19) and I used Final cut DV. the great thing is last year I did the video editing for 2 TV pilots (unfortunatly both of them fell through) I used Avid Composer for both of them and it was the same program as Avid DV, Avid Xpress Pro and Avid Free DV. If your not going to make any money of this video editing your going to do I would suggest you get Avid Free DV. itl give you the corner stone so that if you do decide to pursue video editing as a career you will be able to easily move up to the other Avid programs. here is the link for the free download (
http://www.avid.com/freedv/)
hope thats helpful, if you have any questions PM me and ill do my best to asnwer them