The Frozen 2013

It wasn't until the early 2010s that the creative team—directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee—found the key. The breakthrough came not from adhering to the source material, but from subverting it. In Andersen’s tale, the Snow Queen is a villain. In Disney’s iteration, she became a tragic, sympathetic figure: Elsa.

Frozen set up this expectation beautifully. When Anna’s heart is accidentally frozen by Elsa, the audience is conditioned to believe that a kiss from her dashing suitor, Hans, will save her. The film’s third-act twist—that Hans is a sociopathic usurper—subverted decades of Disney doctrine. the frozen 2013