The best adverts of 2025, ranked

The best advert of 2025 was a trailer for a documentary: Channel 4’s “School’s Back”, 4creative’s film for the return of Educating Yorkshire, directed by Dougal Wilson and released in August 2025. It took Commercial of the Year and six Arrows at the British Arrows in March 2026, and it is the rare piece of work that is both the year’s most awarded and the year’s most liked. Ad Ranking’s list of the best adverts 2025 produced starts there. Behind it come Cadbury Bournville’s “Made to Be Enjoyed, Not Endured” and Waitrose’s four-minute romantic comedy “The Perfect Gift”, which between them took four golds at the same ceremony.

The list is worldwide but weighted to Britain, and every entry launched in calendar 2025. The evidence comes from the juries and the research firms that have now finished judging the year: Cannes Lions 2025 and 2026, the British Arrows 2026, D&AD 2026, System1’s top ten of 2025 and Kantar’s 2026 effectiveness awards, which test the work tested during 2025. Strong 2024 launches that won in 2025, such as AXA’s “Three Words” and Channel 4’s Paralympics film, are excluded on date, and work that broke in early 2026 will wait for next year’s list.

20 to 11: the best adverts 2025 gave the world

20. Life360: I Think of You (Dying) (2025)

Alto New York’s April 2025 film has a mother sing a power ballad listing every way her children could die, from escalators to geese, while they roll their eyes at the dinner table. It sells a location-sharing app by admitting what the app is really for, and the song is the product demonstration. Cannes gave it a Gold Film Lion in 2026 and the British Arrows also recognised it. Crown verdict: the year’s best proof that a category’s embarrassing truth is its best script.

19. American Eagle: Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans (2025)

Made in-house and released in July 2025, the pun on “genes” became a fortnight of national argument in America about what the brand meant by it. System1 measured a 16 per cent uplift in contempt against the fashion category and named it the most polarising ad of the year, which is not praise, but the same list put it in the top ten for cut-through. Crown verdict: the most argued-about advert of 2025, and a reminder that attention and affection are different currencies.

18. Suncorp: Haven (2025)

Leo Australia’s May 2025 platform for the insurer gave every Australian home a voice: enter an address and the house tells you its own risk from storm, flood and fire, and what would make it stronger. It is a service rather than a slogan, which is why it won the Dan Wieden Titanium Grand Prix at Cannes 2026, the jury calling it a game-changer for the category. Crown verdict: the best proof of 2025 that an insurance brand can advertise by being useful before the claim.

17. Nike: So Win (2025)

Wieden+Kennedy Portland’s first Nike Super Bowl commercial in 27 years, in February 2025, listed everything women athletes are told they cannot do, in black and white with Led Zeppelin, and answered each with the same two words. Caitlin Clark, Sha’Carri Richardson and A’ja Wilson fronted it. It was old-fashioned Nike, which after a year of being told the brand had lost its edge was exactly the point. Crown verdict: the best-written sixty seconds of the American year, and a brand remembering its voice.

16. Columbia Sportswear: Expedition Impossible (2025)

adam&eveTBWA London’s December 2025 stunt offered flat-earthers everything the company owns if they could post a photograph from the edge of the world, then equipped them to go and look. It is a product demonstration disguised as a dare: the kit was real, the offer was real and the edge was not, and it won the Brand Experience and Activation Grand Prix at Cannes 2026. Crown verdict: the bravest brief of the year, because the brand risked being the joke and ended up telling it.

15. The Ordinary: The Periodic Fable (2025)

Uncommon Creative Studio’s October 2025 campaign for Deciem’s skincare brand took the form of a book of beauty-industry myths, from miracle ingredients to impossible standards, and a film that read them out with a straight face, the straight face being the craft. It won the Health and Wellness Grand Prix at Cannes 2026, and Uncommon was named the British Arrows’ agency of the year. Crown verdict: the year’s best example of a challenger brand attacking its own category’s language rather than its rivals.

14. McVitie’s: 100 years of Chocolate Digestives (2025)

adam&eveTBWA marked the biscuit’s centenary with outdoor work built on a single argument, that the nation has been eating it chocolate-side-up when it should be the other way, and pladis lit up London for the birthday. Kantar ranked the banner the most effective print and outdoor ad in the world in its 2026 awards. A hundred-year-old biscuit had never been argued about before. Crown verdict: a poster that turned an anniversary into a disagreement, which is the only way an anniversary gets noticed.

13. Aldi: Kevin the Carrot’s wedding (2025)

McCann Manchester’s tenth Kevin story ran as a three-part serial from 3 November 2025, with a proposal by Love Actually cue cards, a stag do gone wrong and a wedding on 27 November, and the cue-card proposal is the funniest thing Aldi has filmed. Aldi says the character has scored five stars in System1 testing for six consecutive years. Our review of the decade explains why the franchise keeps getting funnier. Crown verdict: the best-managed character in British retail, in its most confident year.

12. Women’s Aid: The Monster Who Came to Tea (2025)

Released on 7 March 2025, the film borrows the picture-book register of Judith Kerr’s tiger for a story about a monster in the house that a child cannot make anyone else see. Tulips & Chimneys animated it and took the British Arrows gold for 2D animation. The craft is gentle, which is what makes the subject unbearable; Women’s Aid calls domestic abuse a national emergency, and the film makes that case without a statistic. Crown verdict: the best charity film of the year, and the one that trusted a metaphor to do the shouting.

11. Apple: Someday (2025)

Spike Jonze directed Pedro Pascal through a heartbreak on a winter street in January 2025: he puts AirPods 4 in, the noise cancelling kicks in, and the city thaws into a dance number. It is a product demonstration performed as a musical, and Pascal’s face does the spec sheet. The feature is invisible, so Jonze made it audible: the moment the noise stops, the film changes key. Crown verdict: the most beautiful thing on this list, and a demo you could show a stranger without explaining the feature.

10 to 4: the best UK adverts of 2025

10. Andrex: Conquer the First School Poo (2025)

FCB London’s Get Comfortable platform sent a small boy on a hero’s journey to the school toilets in May 2025, to a full orchestral score and the encouragement of a whole playground. The poo is never seen and never needs to be, and the boy’s walk back across the yard is played as a victory lap. It won British Arrows golds for the best 30-to-90-second commercial and for casting, credited to Hannah Birkett. Crown verdict: the year’s best comic film about a subject no toilet-roll brand used to name.

9. Uber: In Good Time (2025)

Mother’s October 2025 film follows a couple’s romance across years of rides, on the logic that “because there are love stories in your area, there are drivers in your area”. System1 found it the most recalled brand against its category, with fluency 26 per cent above the mobile-app average, and named it the best of 2025 for brand recall. The drivers are the supporting cast and the brand is the constant. Crown verdict: the best use of a long story to fix a short brand name in memory.

8. Heinz: Lost in Love (2025)

Wieden+Kennedy London and Heinz’s in-house team The Kitchen launched the evolved It Has to Be Heinz platform in July 2025 with people so absorbed in the ketchup that the world stops, the tennis film being the one that stuck. Kantar named it the most effective TV ad of the year in its 2026 awards. Our review of The Wait covers where the idea came from. Crown verdict: the most disciplined brand platform in British food, in its best year yet.

7. Sainsbury’s: The Unexpected Guest (2025)

New Commercial Arts brought Roald Dahl’s BFG back on 2 November 2025 with a new colleague, Annie, and a Greedy Giant raiding Taste the Difference from homes across the country, with Rogue Films producing and Electric Theatre Collective on the effects. It is the first time Sainsbury’s has had a Christmas franchise worth continuing, and the second film is better than the first. The BFG’s whispered awe at a supermarket aisle is the joke, and the Greedy Giant gives the sequel somewhere to go. Crown verdict: the best sequel of Christmas 2025.

6. Nationwide: A Good Way to Beat Scams (2025)

Mother put Dominic West’s smug bank boss back to work in September 2025, this time sneering at the idea of a real person checking a customer’s payment before it goes, which is exactly what Nationwide offers. Kantar ranked the scam-checker film the second most effective TV ad in the world. Our review of the platform asks whether the fairer-share pitch is working; the scam checker is a real service and the villain is the reason you remember it. Crown verdict: the year’s best villain, used to sell the least glamorous product in banking.

5. Warburtons: The Inspection (2025)

Olivia Colman arrives at the bakery in April 2025 on behalf of the Department of National Treasures to check whether the crumpets deserve the status, and Jonathan Warburton fails to impress her. The bakery family has fronted its own ads for years, and the twist is that this time they are the ones under review. System1 named it the best ad of 2025 for short-term impact, with a Spike Rating uplift of 0.55 against the bakery category. Crown verdict: the Warburtons celebrity formula at its sharpest, because the celebrity is the one doing the judging.

4. John Lewis: Where Love Lives (2025)

Saatchi & Saatchi’s third John Lewis Christmas film, from 4 November 2025, sends a father back to a 1990s dancefloor when his adult son gives him a vinyl copy of Alison Limerick’s Where Love Lives, reimagined by Labrinth. Jonathan Alric of The Blaze directed, and the line “If you can’t find the words, find the gift” is the sharpest the retailer has had in years. It ranks in our all-time Christmas list. Crown verdict: the best of the Saatchi era, and a story about men who cannot say it.

The top three best adverts of 2025

3. Waitrose: The Perfect Gift (2025)

Wonderhood Studios made a four-minute romantic comedy in which Joe Wilkinson’s widower meets Keira Knightley at the cheese counter, directed by Molly Manners through Biscuit Filmworks. It took two golds, a silver and a bronze at the British Arrows, including the gold for the best commercial over ninety seconds. The length is the argument: Waitrose has decided it is a food entertainment brand and is behaving like one. Crown verdict: the most ambitious format of the year, and the first supermarket short that earns its running time.

2. Cadbury Bournville: Made to Be Enjoyed, Not Endured (2025)

VCCP’s August 2025 campaign for the dark chocolate brand made a joke of the category’s masochism, the ever-higher cocoa percentages that people pretend to like, and offered Bournville as the one you actually enjoy. It won two golds, a silver and a bronze at the British Arrows, in the year Cadbury was named Advertiser of Excellence and Gorilla was voted the public’s favourite commercial of fifty years. Crown verdict: the best-written British commercial of 2025, and the rare line that is also the strategy.

1. Channel 4: School’s Back (2025)

4creative’s trailer for the return of Educating Yorkshire, released on 10 August 2025 ahead of the September series, was directed by Dougal Wilson through Blink and treats the first day of term at Thornhill Community Academy as a full musical number: the whole school, staff included, tumbling back through the gates. It took Commercial of the Year and six Arrows, including Wilson’s gold for direction, the Frank Budgen Award. It is a promo for a documentary that behaves like the best retail advert of the year. Crown verdict: the best advert of 2025, made by a broadcaster for itself, which is the sort of thing only Channel 4 does.

How we ranked these

Every entry was scored on the idea, the craft, bravery, verified evidence of effectiveness and legs, with idea and evidence weighted heaviest. Evidence means a jury or a research firm putting its name to the work: Cannes Lions 2025 and 2026, the British Arrows 2026, D&AD 2026, System1’s 2025 top ten and Kantar’s 2026 awards. The launch date of every campaign was checked against the brand’s own channel or its trade coverage, and anything that first ran in 2024 or 2026 was excluded however well it did, which is why Cannes 2026’s Film Grand Prix and its PR Grand Prix, both early-2026 launches, are absent. The running list of 2026’s best is where those will be judged.

Frequently asked

What was the best advert of 2025?

Channel 4’s “School’s Back”, the 4creative trailer for Educating Yorkshire directed by Dougal Wilson. It won Commercial of the Year at the British Arrows 2026 with six Arrows in total.

Which 2025 adverts won at Cannes Lions 2026?

Among 2025 launches, Suncorp’s Haven took the Titanium Grand Prix, Columbia’s Expedition Impossible the Brand Experience Grand Prix and The Ordinary’s Periodic Fable the Health and Wellness Grand Prix. Life360 took a Gold Film Lion.

What was the best UK Christmas advert of 2025?

Waitrose’s “The Perfect Gift” on awards, with two British Arrows golds, and John Lewis’s “Where Love Lives” on craft and song. Both sit in our all-time Christmas ranking.

Why is the Cannes 2025 Film Grand Prix not on the list?

Channel 4’s Paralympics film “Considering What?” and L’Oréal’s “The Final Copy of Ilon Specht” shared the 2025 Film Grand Prix, but both launched in 2024. This list is strictly calendar-2025 launches.