If you love movies, but you don’t love sports, you still had to watch the Super Bowl for many, many years. That’s because the Super Bowl is one of the most widely watched events in television, and studios spend big, big bucks to put the trailers for their most promising films in the middle of the commercial breaks, and sometimes even concoct unique commercials specific to the Super Bowl itself.
Also: The Top Five Super Bowls of All-Time
Yes, Super Bowl trailers used to be a damned good reason to leave the television on during a sporting event, but ever since the invention of the internet and the proliferation of high-speed connections, you can just wait a few minutes and watch every single one of the Super Bowl trailers online. Don’t worry about the Super Bowl itself (since its ratings are fine), just sit back and watch all of the Super Bowl trailers right here, ranked from worst to best.
Because just because someone threw a ton of money at an advertisement doesn’t mean it’s actually going to be a good one. Some Super Bowl trailers are awesome, some are crap, and here they all are.
Honorable Mention: Ant-Man vs. The Hulk
Two thirsty heroes. But only one #CokeMini. Let the chase begin.https://t.co/OOMJgDT4C1
— Coca-Cola (@CocaCola) February 8, 2016
Ant-Man steals The Hulk’s miniature can of Coca-Cola, so The Hulk endangers dozens if not hundreds of lives to get it back. It’s a fun commercial, but come on, we all know that superheroes fight over delicious Hostess Fruit Pies, not beverages.
10. Eddie the Eagle
An inspirational sports movie, advertised during an inspirational sporting event. The Super Bowl spot for Eddie the Eagle was always going to be schmaltzy, but adding the endorsement of football players comes across as pandering. “Hey, football fans, we know you wouldn’t have any interest in our ski jumping movie unless it was approved by football, so here’s some football.”
9. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
Speed. Stealth. Precision. Watch the Turtles face a new rival in the #TMNT2 big game spot.https://t.co/btQ38oZWnQ
— #TMNT2 (@TMNTMovie) February 8, 2016
Flashes of franchise favorites Rocksteady, Casey Jones and Krang were enough to get audiences excited about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows Super Bowl spot. Unfortunately, nothing about this dopey trailer gives us any reason to think it’s actually going to do justice to any of these characters, or that it will significantly improve upon the last, financially successful but not very popular film.
8. Gods of Egypt
Speaking of “improvement,” everything else we’ve seen from Gods of Egypt makes this movie look like it’s going to suck, and not only suck, but suck on a level rarely seen since the heyday of Batman & Robin and Catwoman. But this new Super Bowl spot keeps the focus on the epic scope and intriguing imagery, and not on any of the actual characters, which makes the film seem more appealing than ever.
That’s still not VERY appealing, but let’s give credit where credit is due: someone worked their ass off on this trailer.
7. Deadpool
The middle of the road Super Bowl TV spot of the year, but it’s not really Deadpool‘s fault. The movie comes out in less than a week, and there’s just not much this ad campaign can do to surprise us anymore. So they just gave Ryan Reynolds a quick, mostly harmless Super Bowl joke and then showed us the same basic commercial we’ve already been seeing for weeks. It’s still a solid TV spot, but it couldn’t possibly stand out against trailers like…
6. X-Men: Apocalypse
The new teaser for the umpteenth X-Men movie is all bombast, and very little plot. But at least it’s NEW bombast, featuring dynamite shots of Psylocke (Olivia Munn, looking great) carving up cars with psychic blades and Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) getting WAY too handsy with Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence). This is a good trailer, but not a great one: it sells the action but not the story or the characters, and basically just says “There’s another X-Men movie, and you’ll have a good time if you turn your brain off.”
5. Jason Bourne
Our first preview of the latest Jason Bourne movie, and the first announcement that it will be called Jason Bourne. But heck, they could call this movie Big Momma’s House 4 and we’d still want to see it. The reunion of Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass looks like another badass thriller, although the plot – finding our action hero in an underground fighting arena and enlisting him on one more mission for the government that wronged him – seems like exactly the same plot as Rambo III. For better or worse.
4. 10 Cloverfield Lane
Dan Trachtenberg’s sequel (or possibly spin-off?) to the found-footage giant monster movie Cloverfield surprised audiences with a last-minute trailer in January, leaving just two months to build buzz for this suspense thriller about John Goodman trapping Mary Elizabeth Winstead in a bomb shelter. We see a little bit more of the story’s set up in the Super Bowl spot, and some glimpses of what’s going on outside of Goodman’s murder basement. An intriguing advertisement, to say the least.
3. The Jungle Book
A full-length trailer of a film that looks properly huge, Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book came very close to topping our list of Super Bowl trailers. The visual effects are astounding, the cinematography dazzles, but damn it, it’s still hard to shake the residue of films like Alice in Wonderland, which shoved recognizable actors into classic roles for reasons that made more sense from a marketing perspective than from a storytelling perspective. Even so, this is an impressive Super Bowl spot, and the reinterpretation of the classic song score is inventive and fun.
2. Captain America: Civil War
Gravitas, excitement, action, adventure… but no Spider-Man. Theories abounded that Marvel Studios would finally reveal the new Spider-Man in the Super Bowl spot for Captain America: Civil War, which finds The Avengers divided and fighting each other over ideological issues. But let’s be honest, if they show Spider-Man months before the movie comes out, it’s all anybody will talk about. It will cease to be Captain America: Civil War and become, in the eyes of the public, Spider-Man: Civil War. Marvel doesn’t want that, especially since he’s probably not in the movie all that much.
So what we got is this kickass trailer with a minor disappointment built into its DNA. It’s great stuff, but nowhere near as epic as…
1. Independence Day: Resurgence
This is a great Super Bowl spot, evoking our shared cultural appreciation for the event with a grand sense of devastation, composed as only Roland Emmerich can. (Say what you will about his movies, but no one else does destruction quite like this.) The trailer for Independence Day: Resurgence doesn’t reveal much about the movie, other than that the aliens are back, but the sheer enormity of the action – and the mind-boggling shot of gravity turning against us – transformed this movie from a nostalgia throwback into, for better or worse, a must-see blockbuster.
Top Photo: 20th Century Fox
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
Slideshow: Crave’s Top 10 Football Movies
Top 10 Football Movies
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#10 - Knute Rockne All American (1940)
“Win just one for the Gipper.” In one of the most iconic scenes in all of cinema, a dying Ronald Reagan’s George Gipp pleads to his Notre Dame coach, Knute Rockne. Sure, the film is filled with newsreels of actual games and inspirational speeches, but the true resonation today is the role made famous by Reagan. How many sports movies can be said that it helped an actor become President decades later?
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#09 – Any Given Sunday (1999)
One of those love or hate polarizing films. Oliver Stone takes a sports film and makes over the top in every aspect. The life or death decisions over player's health to “trying to move the team” is taken to extremes. Really, there are two football teams in Miami? And Albuquerque is getting an expansion team?? Despite all of that, there are plenty of name stars that make the film enjoyable. Plus Al Pacino and the frantic editing is so over the top it wraps back around to fun.
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#08 – Wildcats (1986)
I’m writing this article so I get to include my absolutely favorite football flick. If you haven’t seen it, then it is understandable you’ll laugh at the idea of Goldie Hawn taking over an inner-city high school team that is losing all the while balancing being a single mom. I’m telling you this is a great, funny, awesome football movie. It helps that it was the first film for Woody Harrelson, Wesley Snipes and LL Cool J … and Nipsey Russell is the high school principle (“peanut brittle?”). Seriously, go find this little known gem.
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#07 – Remember the Titans (2000)
There have been countless sports movies with the same basic plot. A coach (this time Denzel Washington) takes over a team that is struggling with integration, racism and a pursuit of greatness. Maybe a scene involving one race learning the difference of the other. Maybe someone learns to dance like the other side. Maybe some jokes about the different food. Frequently copied but never duplicated in the quality department, Titans leads the way of a specific sports genre.
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#06 - North Dallas Forty (1979)
An old school football movie about the way old football players used to play. Nick Nolte pays through the pain of the game with a combo of booze and painkillers. It was a big deal back in the day as it exposed the debauchery of the players and the lack of concern of the owners towards their health. Wow, times have changed!
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#05 – The Longest Yard (1974)
No, we’re not talking about the craptastic Adam Sandler remake. We’re talking about the badass Burt Reynolds film directed by Robert Aldrich of The Dirty Dozen fame. Reynolds plays a former NFL quarterback in prison who is forced to start an inmate team to play the guards… and get beat up in the process. The football action feels real thanks to former and current NFL stars. Reynolds was in the apex of his epic run of manly films and this one remains a must see.
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#04 - Varsity Blues (1999)
“I give it a ten! A ten! A fucking ten!” “Hey you wanna see the new Tweeder end zone dance?” “I don’t want [extended pause] your life.” While Friday Night Lights is a better “movie”, Varsity Blues is a better “film”. It is more memorable, more re-watchable, and more quotable. It balances the real issues of football while not getting overly dramatic like “The Program” or “Any Given Sunday” and has the right amount of humor that doesn’t steer it into goofy territory. Of course, the whip cream and “hot for teacher” scenes might very well be great cinema.
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#03 – Friday Night Lights (2004)
Based on the best-selling book and remade into a hit T.V. show, Lights is about the priority status small town Texas gives to high school football. Watching the film is a hard mixture of sympathy anger for the struggles the boys go through and the pure joy of their successes -- fear and ambition; pressure and adulation. The true story does a superb job of replicating real life.
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#02 - Brian’s Song (1971)
A heartfelt relationship movie seems like an unlikely movie to put second on the all-time best football movie list, but the real-life story was unlikely. Brian Piccolo (James Caan) is a dying white Chicago Bears running back and Gail Sayers (Billy Dee Williams) is the black man taking his job. It is a buddy movie wrapped in sports film. Most importantly, some very lucky kids were named after Brian Piccolo in the 70’s.
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#01 - Rudy (1993)
Sure there is more fiction than fact but the movie hits all the right notes for a great sports film. An underdog, undersized Rudy Ruetttiger has one dream in life -- to play for his one, true love, Notre Dame. He goes from not being good enough to get into the school, to the practice squad, to being on the actual game day roster. The ‘laying of jerseys’ is one of the all-time greatest movie scenes. Or maybe it was the crowd scene chanting “Rudy! Rudy!” It is almost impossible to pick a favorite moment.
