Deuterium NMR gives access to the amplitude and rates of lipid chain motions in model membrane systems. Oriented bilayers, easily prepared by stacking microscope cover slides in a 10 mm o.d. NMR tube, provide increased resolution and sensitivity (a few milligrams of phospholipid are sufficient), and allow to measure T1z anisotropies. These data were determined for all the positions along the sn-2 chain for dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine (DMPC) and DMPC + 30 mol% cholesterol bilayers, at 313 K.