Best Animated Feature: “Frozen”

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The day “Frozen” does not win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film is the day eternal winter sweeps across Cambridge as protest for the Academy’s error. The Disney film is the most deserving nominee. It combines memorable music, plot and characters that defy typical Disney expectations, and complex animation into something surprisingly heart-warming. The “Let It Go” sequence illustrates this: Idina Menzel’s powerful voice, the way the animators manipulate snow and ice to create art and feats of architecture—every aspect captures attention. While the other nominees are commendable, particularly Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Wind Rises,” the power of “Frozen” is too great to pass over for the award. —Ha D.H. Le

Best Directing: Steve McQueen (“12 Years a Slave”)

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"12 Years A Slave," as a narrative, is honestly rather straightforward, even borderline predictable. Enter unflinching auteur Steve McQueen, who singlehandedly transforms Solomon Northup's story into a haunting work of visual poetry. No other film of 2013, not even the visual stunner "Gravity," depended so heavily on who sat in the director's seat. Under McQueen's eye, the brutality of slavery gets the same treatment as the moss-dappled Southern landscape. Horror and beauty exist side-by-side in gorgeous, brutal technicolor. —Tree A. Palmedo

Best Original Score: William Butler & Owen Pallet (“Her”)

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When the nominee list includes the celebrated John Williams, you know the competition is stiff. Regardless of the talent involved, William Butler and Owen Pallett deserve Best Original Score for “Her.” The two are newcomers as film composers, but this does not make them any less deserving. Combining orchestra and techno, their music reflects the film’s technological twist on a classic theme and masterfully bridges the gap between background music and story. The songs accomplish a feat unlike any other: they transform from accompaniment to character, adding tension to the story while embodying the protagonist’s raw emotions. It is a difficult job, and any score that achieves that should win. —Ha D.H. Le

Best Original Song: “The Moon Song” – Karen O (“Her”)

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It’s perhaps the least dramatic of the nominated songs, but it’s also the most intimately personal. Karen O crafted a quiet and dreamy lullaby that’s as much about denial as it is about love, which is why it’s simultaneously heartbreaking and hopeful. Soft, self-conscious, and fragile, it nestles into Spike Jonze’s “Her” like a warm cheek into a cool pillow, and come the end of the movie, helps us realize that even the sweetest of songs can change from a willing embrace to the inability to let go. —Natalie T. Chang