The Next Right Thing
2019 song by Kristen Bell

"The Next Right Thing" is a song from the 2019 animated Disney film Frozen 2. It is performed by American actress and singer Kristen Bell in her vocal role as Princess Anna, and the music and lyrics are written by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez. The song portrays Anna's journey through depression. The song has received praise from critics for its message and meaning and peaked on the Kid Digital Songs chart at number 7.
Synopsis
At the darkest moment of the film, Anna is faced with uncertainty about what to do next after apparently losing both her beloved sister Elsa as well as Olaf, a snowman created by Elsa's magic. In her song "The Next Right Thing," she expresses her feelings of depression. As the song progresses, she reaches the realization that when faced with uncertainty, one must simply focus on doing "The Next Right Thing."
Production
Bell told director Jennifer Lee she wanted to see Anna "face her codependency head-on" and "a song about what she's going to do when she doesn't know what to do". Anderson-Lopez and Lopez drew inspiration from personal tragedy in the lives of two people that worked on Frozen and Frozen II; co-director Chris Buck lost a son, and Andrew Page, a central figure in the music production of both films, lost a daughter. Buck's son died around the time when Buck needed to begin the interviews and press tours to promote Frozen; the Lopezes witnessed how Buck insisted on going through that highly public process and the subsequent awards season even though he was dealing with such a terrible personal tragedy at the same time. Anderson-Lopez stated when writing the lyrics, she "really just thought about them, and wrote it for them." Bell said she drew inspiration from her own mental health.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “The Next Right Thing” as 2019 song by Kristen Bell. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 2019 song by Kristen Bell. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q85847729. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2019.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “The Next Right Thing”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow The Next Right Thing primary sources, The Next Right Thing archive and Next research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Next Right Thing”?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “The Next Right Thing” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.