National Film RegistryLibrary of Congress · Inducted 2023
“The king of dark whimsy, Tim Burton won over an even larger (and decidedly younger) crowd with this delightful stop-motion animated offering. Jack Skellington, whose giant pumpkin head rests precariously on top of his rail-thin body, is the king of Halloween Town; one year he dreams of bringing a little Christmas magic to his humble hamlet.”
Selected for preservation as culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.
Directed by
Henry Selick
Studio
Walt Disney Pictures · Touchstone Pictures · Skellington Productions · 73 min
Box office
$91.2M worldwide on a $24M budget
Honors
Academy Awards — 1 nominationAnnie Awards — 1 nomination
Scholarship
Named in the title of 13 peer-reviewed works
Examples
Sources: Wikidata · Library of Congress · OpenAlex. The record of the motion picture, not an assessment of this cell.
FILM NOTES
FILM NOTES
Released by Touchstone Pictures in 1993 and produced under Tim Burton's guidance with director Henry Selick at the helm, The Nightmare Before Christmas remains a landmark of stop-motion animation. Its stitching together of Halloween Town and Christmas Town, scored by Danny Elfman, gave audiences a musical fable unlike anything in the studio animation of its day. Decades on, the film holds a devoted following, prized for its handcrafted puppetry and its willingness to blend gothic imagery with holiday sentiment, a combination that has aged into a perennial favorite screened every autumn.
This cell preserves a frame of the Ghosts, the spectral residents who populate Halloween Town alongside its more famous citizens. Ghosts thread through the film as part of its everyday population, their presence lending texture to the town's macabre charm without pulling focus from the central cast. For collectors, a cell centered on these background dwellers offers a different kind of keepsake, one that speaks to the depth of Halloween Town's citizenry rather than its marquee names, a piece valued for rounding out a collection built around the film's wider ensemble.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm Dolby Digital theatrical release print of The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Gauge
35mm, confirmed by four perforations per frame on both edges; the strip holds three frames.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges; spacing appears even and the punched edges look clean throughout the visible strip.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track is visible along the bottom edge, appearing as two bilateral variable-area tracks with a blue dye stripe; Dolby Digital pixel blocks are visible in the inter-perforation gaps on the bottom edge, indicating a Dolby Digital / analogue hybrid optical track.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture at sufficient resolution to read manufacturer codes or key numbers.
Base & colour
Base appears neutral to very slightly warm; dye image shows strong colour saturation with no visible fading or red shift.
Projection history
No visible splices, cue marks or heavy scratching are apparent; the image surface appears consistent with a projected release print.
Picture
Positive colour image; all three frames appear to be consecutive frames from a single shot, and the subject matter is consistent with an animated feature matching the film on record.
Era check
The Dolby Digital inter-perforation data blocks combined with bilateral variable-area analogue optical tracks and the blue dye stripe are consistent with a mid-1990s theatrical release print, matching the 1993 release period of the film on record.
Read from the original intake capture shown below. Observations only — film is authenticated, not graded.
This original motion picture film element has been examined and authenticated by Crown Grading in partnership with National Film Vault, and encapsulated for archival preservation.
Why so little survivesRelease prints were leased to theaters, not sold. When the run ended they went back to the distributor to be destroyed, and most were. What collectors hold today came from the prints that escaped that order, and no new 35mm prints of these films are being struck.
CROWN SERIAL 000064543
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
