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 contemporary studio animation, blending gothic imagery with musical storytelling in a way that earned it enduring cult status and eventual IMAX re-release. Its handcrafted frame-by-frame production made every moment of footage a tangible artifact of extraordinary labor.

This cell, titled Santa Jack, captures Jack Skellington suspended upside-down and bound in red restraints against a deep purple background — the moment of his capture and unraveling. All three frames present the same image, offering the collector a triptych of one of the film's most dramatically charged instants.