National Film Vault

FILM NOTES

Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas was released by Touchstone Pictures in October 1993, produced through Burton's collaboration with director Henry Selick and Disney. The stop-motion animated feature stood apart from anything in mainstream cinema at the time, blending gothic sensibility with musical storytelling across a painstakingly crafted miniature world. Its influence on animation, design, and popular culture has only deepened in the decades since its release.

This cell, titled Oogie Boogie, captures the film's most menacing figure across three closely related frames from his shadowy gambling den lair. Oogie Boogie appears in profile throughout, his stitched burlap form rendered in rich detail against the darkness, with glowing dice, candles, and the characteristic yellow and blue elements of his lair visible below.