--- name: "Eric Leighton" canonical: "https://film.one/person/eric-leighton" fi1m_id: "eric-leighton" imdb_id: "nm0500343" tmdb_id: 65856 wikidata_id: "Q22112683" roles: ["Animation supervisor","Director"] born: "6 November 1962" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_over: 1 updated: "2026-10-05T01:56:57.516498+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Eric Leighton ## Identity Eric Leighton - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/eric-leighton - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** eric-leighton - **IMDb ID:** nm0500343 - **TMDB ID:** 65856 - **Wikidata ID:** Q22112683 - **Same entity:** https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q22112683, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0500343/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/65856 Animation supervisor and director. Born 6 November 1962 in San Diego, California, USA. ## Details - **Work:** Animation supervisor, Director - **Born:** 6 November 1962, San Diego, California, USA - **Active:** 1993–2000 - **Titles on Fi1m:** 2: 1 directing, 1 crew - **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1990s 82 (1), 2000s 52 (1) - **Elsewhere:** https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q22112683, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0500343/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/65856 ## Streaming the US now - **Disney+:** [*Dinosaur*](https://film.one/film/dinosaur.md) (52) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Eric Leighton > Eric Leighton knows how to make an animated creature look as though it belongs in a real landscape. His co-directed *Dinosaur* is less persuasive when those creatures speak: we rate the animation more highly than the storytelling. The creatures in *Dinosaur* (2000) look solid enough to belong in the landscapes around them. Eric Leighton and co-director Ralph Zondag make their movement convincing, and the film rewards time spent looking at how those bodies have been animated. Then the thin characters have to sustain a routine family adventure. We were disappointed by how little we cared about creatures whose physical presence had been so carefully established. This is accomplished animation in a film we cannot recommend as a whole. Leighton's grounding was in stop-motion, including work as animation supervisor on Henry Selick's *The Nightmare Before Christmas* (1993). For *Dinosaur*, he recruited animators from that production to work with computer-generated creatures. He was bringing stop-motion experience to a different set of tools. The animals' musculature and their placement against live-action backgrounds give us something substantial to look at. The achievement is shared with a team, and we should be wary of assigning it all to either director. His subsequent career has remained chiefly in animation direction and supervision, rather than feature directing. He was animation director on Peter Jackson's *King Kong* (2005) and lead animator on Selick's *Coraline* (2009), returning to stop-motion for the latter. Guest animation on *Anomalisa* (2015) sits alongside animation direction on *Ron's Gone Wrong* (2021). Those are different kinds of contribution, and they give us little reason to treat every film as an expression of Leighton's taste. For us, *Dinosaur* is an awkward introduction to that work because its most persuasive qualities are easy to take for granted. Once the animals seem solid, we expect them to become interesting company, and the script has too little to offer. As co-director, Leighton still bears some responsibility for that disappointment. Give it a look if creature animation is the attraction; for a family adventure, we would look elsewhere. ## Biography Eric Leighton is an American animator and director. Born on 6 November 1962 in San Diego, California, he began his career in stop-motion animation, working for studios including Colossal Pictures, Industrial Light & Magic, Tippett Studio and Henry Selick Productions. Leighton served as animation supervisor on *The Nightmare Before Christmas* (1993). He co-directed the Disney animated feature *Dinosaur* (2000) with Ralph Zondag. His later credits include animation director on *King Kong* (2005) and *Ron's Gone Wrong* (2021), and lead animator on *Coraline* (2009). *Sources: imdb.com, en.wikipedia.org.* ## On Fi1m (2) ### Directed (1) - *Dinosaur* (2000), Fi1m 52, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/dinosaur.md) ### Crew (1) — the average rests on these - *The Nightmare Before Christmas* (1993), Fi1m 82, Animation Supervisor — [page](https://film.one/film/the-nightmare-before-christmas.md) ## Complete filmography (7) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Ron's Gone Wrong* (2021), Animation Director - *Coraline* (2009), Animation — Fi1m 85, [page](https://film.one/film/coraline.md) - *King Kong* (2005), Animation Director — Fi1m 81, [page](https://film.one/film/king-kong-2005.md) - *Dinosaur* (2000), Director — Fi1m 52, [page](https://film.one/film/dinosaur.md) - *The Nightmare Before Christmas* (1993), Animation Supervisor — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/film/the-nightmare-before-christmas.md) - *Gumby Adventures* (1988), series, Animation Director, Animation - *Untitled Tim Burton Animated Film*, Animation Director ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated - 1994: Best Visual Effects (nominated), for *The Nightmare Before Christmas* *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/eric-leighton