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Here is my annual critical ranking of the Super Bowl commercials. This is the pregame edition, with all the available national ads that I could track down; the list will be updated after Sunday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
The trends so far? Nothing controversial, as you would expect, but also \u2014 and perhaps for associated reasons \u2014 very little creativity. It\u2019s a bad year for ads; the ones at the top of this list aren\u2019t much better than average. More spots than usual depend entirely on the appeal of a relatable celebrity (who is almost certainly male). Concepts beat ideas \u2014 there is a lot of fussy, overly complicated silliness and not much in the way of simple, effective storytelling or mood setting.<\/p>\n
(You may not see every commercial listed here during the game, and you may see commercials not listed here. The various broadcast and streaming platforms will carry different selections of ads, and some ads will only be shown in certain regions.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The N.F.L.\u2019s own feel-good promo, \u201cSomebody,\u201d<\/a> is affecting in a highly produced, can\u2019t-we-all-just-get-along manner. Its implicit endorsement of diversity and inclusion offers a muted contrast to the league\u2019s decision to forgo the \u201cEnd Racism\u201d<\/a> end-zone slogan.<\/p>\n No. 2<\/p>\n David Beckham learns he has a secret twin, who turns out to look a lot like Matt Damon. Reasonably charming, and Ben Affleck jokes never get old.<\/p>\n No. 3<\/p>\n The actor Barry Keoghan rides a donkey around ye olde rural Ireland (he\u2019s back in the world of \u201cThe Banshees of Inisherin\u201d), delivering customers\u2019 websites by throwing laptops into farmyards and through pub windows. It\u2019s cute, even though it\u2019s designed to ensure that Keoghan yells \u201cSquarespace!\u201d every few seconds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Scheduled for the pregame show, the coffee maker\u2019s stylish \u201cHello Again\u201d ad seeks to remind us why we once loved Starbucks. And it kind of does!<\/p>\n No. 5<\/p>\n Snoop Dogg and Tom Brady trade insults for 15 seconds, spitting out generic reasons for hating each other. Their celebrity is a distraction from the message about tolerance, but when Snoop, now himself, says, \u201cI hate that things are so bad that we have to do a commercial about it,\u201d it still hits home.<\/p>\n No. 6<\/p>\n Gordon Ramsay is recruited to cook for a visiting extraterrestrial played by Pete Davidson. The scenario is clever, though the Ramsay-to-Davidson ratio is exactly the opposite of what you would want.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Those noted grumps Aubrey Plaza and Michael Shannon show off their saltiness, because Ritz crackers are salty. (Bad Bunny drops by, for the sake of variety.) It\u2019s more intelligible than most of the one-joke ads, and Plaza and Shannon are a good pair.<\/p>\n No. 8<\/p>\n The likely progress of climate change is charted along the timeline of a newborn girl\u2019s life. A little clunky and sanctimonious in its execution but unimpeachable in its sentiments.<\/p>\n No. 9<\/p>\n The national ad for Google\u2019s Gemini personal assistant is likely to be the most slickly handsome production in the field. If the use of Capra-esque family moments to humanize an A.I.-generated voice that coaches a dad for a job interview completely creeps you out, however, feel free to move this to the bottom of the list.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nStella Artois<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Squarespace<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The Foundation to Combat Antisemitism<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
HexClad<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Science Moms<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Google<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n