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 stop-motion studio Skellington Productions. The film marked a turning point for feature animation, demonstrating that the painstaking frame-by-frame puppet technique could sustain a full theatrical release with genuine emotional weight. Its dark aesthetic and Danny Elfman score earned it an enduring place in cinema history.

This cell, titled Ghosts, captures the translucent spirit figures mid-flight through Halloween Town, their ethereal forms caught against the settlement's characteristic dark architecture of wooden beams and cobblestone. Across three nearly continuous frames, the ghosts swirl and drift, preserving a quiet, atmospheric moment from one of stop-motion animation's most celebrated productions.