Which video editing program is best?

Which video editing programs for windows XP are best. I am into making short films but need a program.

I personally recommend virtualdub (for avi) and tmpgenc (for mpeg)
http://www.virtualdub.org
http://www.tmpgenc.net

Windows XP comes with Movie Maker, but it creates videos in Windows Media format, which is proprietary and very difficult to later export or edit, so I don’t recommend using it.
Also for portability, when you use virtualdub use a codec that’s in widespread use.