National Football League

Super Bowl commercials: Our 10 favorite ads from Sunday

Published Feb. 1, 2015 11:27 p.m. ET

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Another year of Super Bowl commercials is in the books.

This year's set was sandwiched around quite the football game -- the New England Patriots won their fourth Lombardi Trophy in the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick era, winning a thriller over the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday. The Pats sealed it on a goalline interception in the final minute.

Who were the big winners in the advertising space? Check below for our list of 10 favorites from Sunday's game, presented in no particular order. You can check all of them out here.

Some of these leaked well in advance of Sunday's game and may already be feeling a little played out. We tried to ignore those biases and judge them as though seeing them for the first time. Disagree with our list? Sound off in the comments below.

TOYOTA CAMRY: AMY PURDY

Our favorite of the "inspirational" set of ads that ran Sunday. Amy Purdy is a noted Paralympian snowboarder. She also happens to be a model and a dancer. Camry uses all this to full effect, showing her overcoming her impairment -- she lost both of her legs below the knee due to meningitis when she was 19 -- in all these endeavors while a Muhammad Ali speech is heard over it. Makes any excuses you make not to achieve something sound like just that.

BMW: CAR OF THE FUTURE

Remember that time in 1994 when Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel didn't know what the Internet was? Well, BMW has resurrected an old TV segment of them having trouble with the "@" sign and the concept of a ".com," then shows them in present day marveling over the all-electric BMW I3, produced in a wind-powered factory. Kudos to whomever dug up the old clip, and to Couric and Gumbel for being able to poke fun at themselves.

BUDWEISER: LOST DOG

This one made plenty of headlines before the game ever started. A cute puppy goes to great lengths to follow his good buddy on the road -- a Budweiser Clydesdale. The owner thinks the dog's gone missing, but the horses team up to shepherd him home. Cute, and timely -- it came out right around the same time GoDaddy was taking heat for a very different kind of puppy commercial.

NATIONWIDE: INVISIBLE MINDY KALING

Actress Mindy Kaling, the story goes, spent so much time feeling invisible, she thought she might actually BE invisible. So she does what anyone who is invisible would do -- goes to the park naked, eats ice cream by the tub, walks through a car wash. But when she leans in to kiss Matt Damon at a restaurant, she learns the hard truth. One of the funnier efforts on the list, though it is marred a bit by another ad from Nationwide that did not go over so well.

DORITOS: AIRPLANE SEAT

We've all been there. You're on a plane and the middle seat is still open and you're hoping no one takes it. Our character here goes to great lengths to make sure no one takes that seat -- pretending to be sick, playing a recorder, reading a book about irritable bowel syndrome. He stops all this when he sees an attractive woman, but he gets more than he bargained for when he encourages her to sit next to him by flashing a bag of Doritos.

SQUARE SPACE: DREAMING WITH JEFF

This one was weird. And excellent. Square Space, a website that helps you build websites, gives us this spot with Jeff Bridges chanting "Ommm" over the bed of a sleeping couple. Then comes a promo for something called "dreamingwithjeff.com." Yes, this is an actual website you can go to right now that provides Jeff Bridges sleeping tapes. This is a game changer.

CLASH OF CLANS: LIAM NEESON

The mobile strategy game capitalizes on the popularity of the "Taken" movie franchise, showing Neeson looking at his phone and spouting off some lines akin to those iconic menacing speeches from the films -- "I am coming for you with lots of barbarians and dragons." The camera then flips to a coffee shop employee who calls out his name (pronouncing it "LIE-um") and says his scone his ready. "It's ... LEE-um," Neeson deadpans back. Great combo.

DODGE: TURNING 100

A cast of 100-year-olds -- not all of them are quite there yet, but stop nitpicking -- share their wisdom on enjoying life to the fullest, which includes such gems as "live fast," and "don't bitch." It all sets up as a nod to Dodge's 100th anniversary. The company was founded in 1914. As staged ads go, this one was fun and light with a good message -- though we're pretty sure you wouldn't make it to 100 driving that Dodge as recklessly as is depicted in the commercial.

T-MOBILE: GOOD RECEPTION

Comediennes Chelsea Handler and Sarah Silverman team up for another one of the funnier efforts of the day. The two have a phone conversation in many various exotic locations in their house -- Silverman has a hilariously barren "trophy room;" Handler goes into her "subterranean petting zoo" -- all the while celebrating their great reception on T-Mobile's Wi-Fi calling feature. It's enough to make anyone who can't get reception walking down the damn street want to switch carriers.

MOPHIE: GOD RUNS OUT OF BATTERY

We see a very chaotic and strange disaster-stricken world, where dogs walk people, water from the Earth's oceans floats off into space, and nothing is as it seems. The reason? It turns out God's phone has run out of battery. Whoops. Pretty good stuff from the mobile phone battery pack company, though we're pretty sure God only looks upset because he can't play Candy Crush.

HONORABLE MENTION

Snickers: The Brady Bunch ... It's a formula that continues to work well for Snickers, but it's just too expected at this point.

McDonalds: Paying With Love ... A great marketing idea that will no doubt go over very well in the next couple of weeks, but why do we get the feeling it will hard to find any "participating locations"?

Mexico Avacados: First Draft Ever ... Pretty solid offering from a random food, much like the Stephen Colbert pistachio commercials of years past.

Loctite Glue: Getting Weird ... It's a glue company advertising during the Super Bowl. What else did you expect?

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