National Film Vault

FILM NOTES

Produced by Tim Burton and directed by Henry Selick, The Nightmare Before Christmas arrived from Walt Disney Pictures and Touchstone Pictures in October 1993. Shot entirely in stop-motion animation, the film represented a landmark in the technique's theatrical ambition, bringing Burton's illustrated poem to life through painstaking frame-by-frame craft. Its blend of gothic imagery and holiday sentiment found an audience that has only grown across the decades, cementing the production as one of the most distinctive animated features of its era.

This cell, titled Timmy, captures the small bald boy across three sequential frames during the Christmas Eve delivery sequence. Timmy is shown holding a large gift box against a warm wooden interior with blue accents, his expression shifting through slight variations in pose and a visible smile directed upward. The three-frame progression offers a rare window into the subtle movement increments that define stop-motion performance, preserving a quiet, grounded moment from a film built on extraordinary detail.