director's cut

In public use, a director's cut is the director's preferred version of a film. It is generally considered a marketing term to represent the version of a film the director prefers, and is usually used in contrast to a theatrical release of that film where the director did not have final cut privilege and did not agree with what was released. The word "cut" is used in this context as a synecdoche to refer to the entire film editing process and the resulting product. Traditionally, films were edited by literally cutting strips of film and splicing them together.