The last Super Bowl Commercials recap I did was in 2023. They’re a lot of work, so comment and share if you like this. This year I’m including my favorites and some I want to talk about, with a heavy bias towards ads that were released ahead of time. I’m sure to miss a few, especially everything that aired after Bad Bunny’s transcendent Half Time Show. I’m also skipping the trailers and TV series ads. The cost for a 30 second Super Bowl commercial this year was a reported $10 million! That’s insane. Also I’m so glad the Seattle Seahawks beat the New England Patriots! Here are the Super Bowl spots that stood out to me.
Squarespace: Unavailable
Emma Stone starred in a commercial directed by Yorgos Lathimos for Squarespace. The premise/backstory is that she worked for years to get the rights to EmmaStone.com. The main commercial that aired, a black and white film noir-type spot, didn’t work as well as another where she’s in her trailer on set, threatening the person holding her domain hostage.
Dunkin: Good Will Dunkin
Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Jasmine Guy, Jaleel White, Jason Alexander, Ted Danson, Tom Brady, Alfonso Ribeiro and Matt LeBlanc star as digitally de-aged versions of themselves in this bizarre tribute to Good Will Hunting that somehow works through sheer absurdity. I loved when Ted Danson called out Ben Affleck for being single and working a Boston schtick for Dunkin at 50. When Jennifer Aniston showed up outside with Tom Brady asking “how do you like these nuts?” I screamed.
Telemundo: FIFA 2026
Sofia Vergara coaches Owen Wilson to be a Spanish fútbol commentator in this heartwarming commercial from Telemundo.
Instacart: The Age of Now
This retro ad, featuring Ben Stiller and Benson Boone, is my favorite among the pre-released ads. The extended version kept me glued the whole time. I laughed so hard at the end and watched it a couple times.
Rocket and Redfin Mortgage: America Needs Neighbors Like You
I usually ignore the sentimental ads, but this one is truly moving. They tell a whole story about neighbors working together to help each other through tough times, all while Lady Gaga sings “Won’t You Be My Neighbor.” I loved it.
Hellmans: Sweet Sandwich Time
Andy Samberg and Elle Fanning star in this Hellman’s commercial featuring a clever riff on Sweet Caroline.
Pringles: Love at First Bite
Sabrina Carpenter fashions herself a Pringles boyfriend and ends up consuming him at the end. This reminds me so much of Pinchy the lobster on The Simpsons.
Kellogg’s Raisin Bran: Will Shat
This is similar to the Michael Bublé Bubbly seltzer commercial from 2019 and it’s genius to have William Shatner on a mission to help people do their business. It’s hysterical when they bring out the Shih Tzu at the end. Also, I’m glad to see William Shatner doing well.
Bud Light: Keg
I laughed so hard at all the wedding guests scrambling down the cliff to catch the runaway keg. Peyton Manning, Shane Gillis, and Post Malone star. This mirrors the annual Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake that takes place near Gloucester, England every year.
Turbotax: The Expert
Adrien Brody gets schooled for overacting in this Turbotax commercial. It worked in that it reminded me about their experts.
State Farm: Stop Livin on a Prayer
Keegan-Michael Key and Danny McBride run an inferior insurance agency. When customer Hailee Steinfeld comes in they launch into a janky version of Livin on a Prayer that details all the ways lesser insurance agencies only do it halfway. Bonus appearances from Jon Bon Jovi and Jake from State Farm at the end.
Kinder Bueno: No Bueno
Someone told this ad agency that talking babies, aliens and astronauts scored well with audiences so they threw the kitchen sink at it. I did like seeing William Fichtner.
Pepsi: The Choice
Taika Waititi stars in this Pepsi commercial as the therapist to a confused Coke polar bear. Note the Coldplay kiss cam reference at the end.
Ritz Crackers: Ritz Island
Scarlett Johansson, Jon Hamm and Bowen Yang party on an island where Ritz crackers are the primary snack. I was thrown off by how airbrushed and filtered they all look, but Jon Hamm’s “salty and buttery” line made me want one.
OIKOS: The Bill Hill
Kathryn Hahn saves the day when Derrick Henry’s cable car is stuck on a hill. I would have liked to have seen her cast a spell as Agatha instead, but that’s probably a protected IP.
Budweiser: American Icons
Budweiser sticks to their formula of cute horses and animals, this time featuring a frienship between a horse and a bald eagle. It relies too much on CGI/AI and isn’t as effective as previous ads that seemed real.
Michelob Ultra: Greg
Kurt Russell plays a ski mentor to Lewis Pullman, a guy named Greg who always ends up buying rounds at the bar. I’m not sure about the point of this other than the Olympics tie-in and the fact that light beer is a better choice. Russell plays Ego and Lewis is Sentry in the MCU though so there’s that.
Fanatics Sportsbook: Betting on the Right Guy
Kendall Jenner talks about how she curses her professional athlete boyfriends and just ends up getting rich with sports bets. Not a bad gig for Bad Bunny’s last known girlfriend. I’m pretty sure they’ve split by this point though. He might be back with his ex, Gabriela Berlingeri.
Manscaped: Hair Ballad
I first saw this commercial on Pajiba and it was so great I linked it. It’s a simple premise, executed well. Also they managed to make piles of hair look cute-ish and not gross.
Bosch: Just a guy
This weird uncanny valley Bosch ad featuring a transforming Guy Fieri and a talking dog got a lot of advanced buzz. It doesn’t make me think of power tools or appliances whatsoever though.
Xfinity: Jurassic Park
Comcast envisions a different ending for Jurassic Park where the park has broadband Internet. This is a good concept and they got the old gang back together, including Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern and Sam Neill, but the de-aging is super creepy. Dunkin’ did it much better.
Liquid IV: Take a Look
These singing toilets stole the show. I love commercials that keep it simple and lean into the joke.
Open AI: You Can Just Build Things
Open AI is evil, but this commercial was so effective and excellent. The Anthropic commercials for Claude, on the other hand, were pure Black Mirror and just made Anthropic seem awful. It’s no coincidence that Claude’s logo looks like an asshole.
T-Mobile: Tell Me Why
The Backstreet Boys surprised T-Mobile customers in a busy store. The best part was the free Slurpee shoutout.
Coinbase: Everybody Coinbase
I got confused by this ad, which I assumed was for T-Mobile at first since they had already featured the Backstreet Boys. USA Today reminds us that Coinbase aired a similar ad in 2022 with just a QR code. Their website crashed right after that. This year’s ad was much better and I sort of paid attention. It definitely stood out, but I doubt viewers learned anything about Coinbase.
I couldn’t get past the weird de-aging in the Dunkin commercial. I get that it made sense bc they were supposed to be in the 90s but still.
The Dunkin commercial has so much face tuning that it made me feel seasick. My husband and I both commented on how messed up it looked.
Thank you for this compilation!
That was a lot of work putting that together Thank you!! I really liked the Dunkin ad but my favorite was the Budweiser one with the horse and eagle. I’m a sucker for animals!!
Thanks for the recap! Way too many AI commercials! My favorite? The tight ends for prostate cancer testing. I laughed out loud.
Same here! The entire party was laughing and talking about it 😄
This was the one for me too!
Sorry but that Dunkin commercial felt like an AI nightmare and largely incoherent. No thanks.
I’m the right age for the Jurassic Park one to get me, so props to them. And I genuinely laughed at “find your inner Greg” so I’m giving the Lewis Pullman-Kurt Russell ad my first place. It felt like an old fashioned Super Bowl ad and I loved that.
Agree.
I was so thrilled to see a young Jasmine Guy, then it freaked me out.
Agreed. They should have had everyone appear as they look today, but in 90’s clothing. That would’ve been funny.
@HilaryIsAlwaysRight I completely agree, the spot would have been funnier if they had their current faces. Another funny joke from a Threads was “the most unbelievable thing in the ad was that both Carlton and Urkel would protect Whitley” (iykyk).
ITA!! It’s going for nostalgia, so having the actors be their real age would make so much sense. Besides, the highlight was “how do you like these nuts” which is a taken on the IMO most quotable line of the movie. I can be in my 50s and yelling that out for laughs if I want to!
Totally creepy looking and I didn’t get it or find it funny at all. I had no idea who that guy at the window was.
My sentiments as well. I didn’t laugh. It was too weird looking for me.
Loved the Budweiser one.
Jurassic Park was fun, though the de-aging was creepy.
Tom Brady
The de-aging cgi is painful to look at – these blobs of almost faces – yuck.
That Dunkin ad was an abomination.
But mostly i muted the ads. They all have big price tags, – and they were always just ads for products.
But, they seem much less funny and inventive and delightful to me.
Of course, i am also old, so, i’m probably not their demographic.
Also, please note the RING camera tracking “lost dogs” is about slave catching/the gestapo/ ethic cleansing. It is not a cute find my doggy ad.
May everyone at ring rot in nazi hell.
I see what you mean about the ring camera ad. Don’t like where this is going at all. 🙁
The deaging scares me.
Also I’ve heard of the name but have no idea what Tom Brady looks like so was left wondering who that boyfriend was
I thought the first Adrien Brody one was quite funny. The Kendall Jenner betting ads are really bad – she just cannot act even when she’s playing herself, and I find the premise gross.
I wanted the State Farm ad to be funnier – i think it was just too long.
The premise of Kendall’s ad was indeed gross! Also weirdly like cheating? She’s a known curse so she bets against the BFs?
Thank you for compiling all the super bowl ads! I don’t live in the US but I still like watching the super bowl ads.
I enjoyed watching Dunkin Donuts, Ritz Crackers, Oikos, Turbotax, T-Mobile and Instacart.
Another vote of thanks!
Never watch football but do love seeing and reading about the ads.
Jasmine Guy looked tremendous🥰…….. but then it’s AI😕.
Well, if Google image search is to be trusted, she looks tremendous in real life too. They coulda just gone with that.
Thanks for putting this together! I didnt see all of these yesterday.
I was weirded out by the de-aging in the Dunkin commercial, even though I liked everyone in it.
I LOVE that one with Owen Wilson and Sofia Vergara!
OK the Redfin one made me cry! Even though my husband is a real estate agent lol lol. (he does commercial real estate though so Redfin doesn’t have an impact).
I was outraged when I realized my beloved special interest of childhood (the Coca Cola polar bears) were in a PEPSI commercial.
I liked the BSB t mobile commercial but was like oh no, they’re shilling stuff in commercials now. I had to explain to the boomers (and my 10 year old) who they are. I liked the Coinbase ad concept but again was like, oh no, it’s the Backstreet Boys AGAIN and they CHANGED THE SONG. haha.
“Am I secure?” lol whaaaaat? I was had by that ad (my daughters and I were singing along), so I was mad that it was for some crypto company.
Stuffing a commercial full of celebs puts a cheap band-aid over the need to be creative and it shows. Tell me a story, make me laugh, make me cry or (duh) make me want your product. You could have those clydesdales perform surgery, but I’m never going to buy that beer because it tastes like crap.
The T-mobile boy band commercial made me embarrassed to be their customer. That said, I loved the keg rolling down the hill at the wedding, and I was literally in tears by the end of the Redfin neighbors commercial.
Another thing, Damn is Scarlett broke!!?😉
She’s signed up to multiple franchises and commercials like she owes back taxes.
She’s fighting like hell to stockpile money, aging is not permitted for female actresses. She directed June Squibb so you know she values older women and their stories.
I loved how they found another “Jennifer” to be Ben’s love interest in the Dunkin’ commercial!
Right! Another Jennifer when we all know his unending love is for Tom Brady.
My favorite was the neighbor one with Lady Gaga. I was in tears at the end
And her voice is so beautiful.
All the AI is just horrible.
What a great compilation! I know that took a LOT of work and it is appreciated!
I don’t live in the US, but I think it’s so funny to see how the Super Bowl commercials is soo over the top! It’s crazy to think about how much money the different brands have put in them, and still..most are so bad, lol!
Thank you so much for this post!
Those betting apps are predatory and disgusting. I find it distressing when celebrities shill for them. I’m looking at you, Colin Jost, Michael Che, and Kendall Jenner.
GREAT compilation! Loved the Emma Stone ads. I won’t touch ai and was disappointed to see it in the opening ceremonies in Milan, sheesh.
I could do without Guy Fieri. I’m pretty sure Coinbase is money laundering. At least they were. I guess that’s a quaint concern these days.
I seriously didn’t like any of the ads except for Adrien Brody’s and the Backstreet Boys both versions. Mainly because I shared a funny anecdote with my husband regarding the BSB and so it became an in-joke moment that stretched between the those two ads but. The AI was atrocious in so many. The Dunkin’ Donuts made me really uncomfortable with the de-aging. It made no sense on surface and would have been funnier or more interesting if we had the actors current faces. Oh the one ad I did enjoy was the “tight ends = prostate check-up”. I thought it was a cute tie-in that made sense.
Right? The de-aging was creepy and unnecessary. If they had just worn wigs and dressed as their former characters it would have been funnier (or at least not so creepy)
Thank you for this! I got to see some ads I missed, including my new favorite, Will Shat. “Will Shat on the car!”
Dunkin was hilarious! I’ve been seeing bits of the Instacart these last few days & I had no idea what it was for–I thought maybe there was some new Mario Bros. movie out or something?
I also preferred the Emma Stone in her trailer version because I don’t get why you’d keep going for the exact same domain name over & over again (I clearly don’t have my own website), so to me it seemed to make her incredibly dumb rather than tenacious.
OK, back to watching more! That’s just top of my head so far.
OK, favorite in the next batch: Bud Light. That cynical ‘I give it a week’ at the end had my LOLing. 🤣
Thank you for the compilation! Loved the Coke Bears response in the Coldplay Kisscam video–that’s how you do it! Don’t try to hide!
I would have liked to like that Budweiser eagle & horse one, but all the time I was thinking, OK, who fed that baby eagle? Was the horse chewing up dead mice & spitting them into the eaglet’s beak? I’ve seen too many live bird nest videos!
Thankful for you posting these!
Shudders to all the AI
Thank you for posting these! I thought I was paying attention but clearly missed several. Like the Oikos one. How I missed San Francisco/Cable Car/Katherine Hahn/greek yogurt, I’ll never know.
Did anyone understand that slack ad?
I liked the Owen Wilson learns Spanish to commentate for the World Cup. Cute. Gooool. And it reminded me that if I want to watch the WC this summer, I can watch the Spanish version to avoid fox (although I’d miss Thierry Henry and Rebecca Lowe. Hmm).
But it felt like way too many scams. And too much AI. The one with Chris Hemsworth was basically yes, Alexa could kill you easily but can also book appointments for you so ignore that. Awful. Creepy as hell.
lol State Farm. They screwed over so many Malibu/Pacific Palisades/Altadena homeowners trying to file claims after the fires.