National Film Vault

FILM NOTES

Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas was released by Touchstone Pictures in October 1993, directed by Henry Selick and produced through Burton's vision of a world where Halloween and Christmas collide. Shot entirely in stop-motion animation, the film represented a landmark achievement in the craft and has endured as a defining work of dark fantasy cinema, earning a devoted following across generations.

This cell captures Santa Claus held captive in Oogie Boogie's lair, bound and surrounded by floating ghostly silhouettes against a shadowed environment edged with glowing borders. The continuous frames show slight positional variation across the shot, preserving a tense and visually atmospheric moment from one of the film's most dramatically charged sequences.