D&AD 2026 Film Winners
D&AD has spent six decades insisting that craft is the most underpriced thing in advertising. The 2026 Film Pencils are the latest dispatch from that argument - the films that wrestled a category cliché into something worth pausing for. This year the jurors leaned into the quiet, the weird, and the emotionally specific. The kind of work that makes you put down the phone, then think about it on the way home. Watch the winners below.
27 campaigns
Coinbase: Your Way Out
Coinbase used a visceral video game metaphor, depicting traditional finance as a glitchy, restricted simulation to show how crypto offers a "way out" into a high - definition world of individual control and financial liberation.
Life360: When They're Ok, You're Ok
Life360 used dark, absurdist humor to show parents in catastrophic physical situations who remain perfectly calm because a notification confirms their child is safe, proving that parental peace of mind outweighs even personal disaster.
Twix: Two Is More Than One
Twix replaced its long-running "Left vs. Right" rivalry with a surreal 1970s car chase where a crash reveals two cars stacked together, dramatizing the simple truth that having two of a good thing is always better than one.
Lynx / Axe: Sweeter Than The Sweetest
To promote its new sweet fragrances, Lynx dramatized the power of sweetness through absurdist films where traditionally sweet icons - like teddy bears - become violently jealous of a man's superior scent, subverting soft gourmand notes into a primal force.
Apple: Relax: Slide
Apple dramatized the iPhone 17's scratch resistance by turning a tense legal negotiation into a visceral durability test. By sliding the phone face-down across a long wooden table, the cringe-inducing sound design transformed a common anxiety into confident product proof.
Snack Jack: Mother Strike
To launch the new ring - shaped snack, Snack Jack dramatized the generational gaming divide by sending a frustrated mother into a surreal battle royale world, where learning her son's language through gameplay becomes the bridge to mutual understanding and connection.
Amazon: Amazon Books - Bring a Book to Life
Visualizing the internal, invisible magic of reading by manifesting book genres as cinematic, mixed-media hallucinations that erupt into the readers' mundane reality, proving that stories are a co-creation between the author's words and the reader's imagination.
Cadbury Bournville: Made to Be Enjoyed, Not Endured
Cadbury Bournville poked fun at the elitism of high-percentage dark chocolate by contrasting pretentious connoisseurs who treat bitterness as a badge of honor with an ordinary man simply enjoying the smooth, accessible taste of a Bournville bar.
Federopticos: It's a GIF
Federopticos dramatized the annoying put-on and take-off routine of presbyopia sufferers by turning their repetitive physical movements into human GIFs, humorously highlighting how ridiculous the struggle looks to others while positioning progressive lenses as the seamless solution.
Apple: I'm Not Remarkable
Apple subverted the 'inspiration porn' trope by featuring disabled students using technology to achieve mundane college normalcy, using an original song to assert that true accessibility means the right to be as unremarkable as everyone else.
Nike (England): Guts2Glory
Nike launched the 2026 England kit using a poetic Mike Skinner narration that juxtaposed gritty English heritage with Hollywood-inspired optimism, bridging the gap between local Sunday league roots and the global stage of a North American World Cup to unite fans.
Columbia Sportswear: Expedition Impossible
Columbia challenged flat-earthers to prove their theory by finding the Earth's edge, promising the entire company as a prize to humorously demonstrate that their gear is 'Engineered for Whatever' - even the most absurd and impossible expeditions.
Columbia Sportswear: Engineered For Whatever - Product Test Films
Columbia subjected its gear to absurdly extreme torture tests - like a desert sauna blasted by flamethrowers - to prove technical superiority through dark humor, contrasting a protected twin against his suffering brother to make durability entertaining rather than just functional.
Absolut Vodka & TABASCO: Absolut Tabasco
Absolut and TABASCO launched their spicy vodka by dramatizing 'heat' through a cinematic expedition to an Icelandic volcano where molten lava is replaced by fiery Bloody Marys, proving that true spice is a force of nature to be handled with care.
Life360: I Think Of You Dying
Life360 dramatized the intrusive, catastrophic fears of parents through a darkly comedic musical number, transforming irrational anxiety into a relatable reason to use real-time location sharing to family - proof their loved ones.
HORNBACH: No Project Without Drama
Hornbach dramatized the chaotic reality of DIY projects through a surreal, operatic performance featuring a Greek chorus, validating the frustration and drama of home improvement to celebrate the hard-earned pride that comes only after overcoming obstacles.
GOT BAG: Goats Got Bag
GOT BAG turned a shepherd's accidental search for 'Goat Bags' into a high-fashion mockumentary, outfitting an Albanian herd in recycled plastic gear to prove durability while subverting luxury tropes with authentic, rural humor.
IKEA: Made for Life
IKEA replaced glossy catalog perfection with raw, uncomfortable domestic realities - like dementia and illness - using clinical price tags to prove their products are built for the messy, unedited truth of real life, not just the highlights.
Apple (F1 The Movie): F1 Haptic Trailer
Apple transformed the iPhone into a sensory racing cockpit by launching the world's first haptic movie trailer, using the Taptic Engine to let viewers physically feel every engine roar and gear shift, turning passive viewing into an immersive physical experience.
Columbia Sportswear: Engineered for Whatever
Columbia subverted the "pristine nature" trope by depicting the outdoors as a chaotic, violent, and unpredictable "motherf***er," proving their gear is engineered for the brutal reality of the wild rather than just the postcard-perfect moments.
Apple: A Critter Carol
Apple countered the rise of 'AI slop' by creating a meticulously handcrafted holiday film featuring woodland puppets who 'discover' an iPhone 17 Pro, using tactile human creativity to demonstrate the device's cinematic capabilities and emotional resonance.
Article 19 / La Unión: The Shooting
The campaign dramatizes the lethal reality of Mexican journalism by using a visceral cinematic metaphor where photographers "shoot" back with cameras against criminals "shooting" with guns, highlighting that capturing the truth has become a life - or - death battle.
L'Oréal: THE FINAL COPY OF ILON SPECHT
L'Oréal reclaimed its iconic slogan's feminist soul by producing a documentary about Ilon Specht, the copywriter who penned it in 1971 out of rage against male-dominated advertising, transforming a beauty cliché back into a powerful manifesto for self-worth.
SickKids: The Count
To celebrate its 150th anniversary, SickKids reframed the hospital's legacy not as a history lesson, but as a relentless count of birthdays won, using a rhythmic, high-stakes countdown to dramatize the life-or-death struggle children face to reach their next milestone.
Chicago Hearing Society: Caption With Intention
The campaign transformed static, functional text into an expressive cinematic tool, allowing deaf audiences to experience the nuance of film performance through synchronized, variable typography and color-coded character identification that conveys tone, volume, and speaker identity.
toom Baumarkt: Irmela vs. Nazis
toom Baumarkt reinterpreted its - Respect for those who do it themselves - slogan by featuring 80 - year - old activist Irmela Mensah - Schramm, who uses simple DIY tools to remove Nazi propaganda, transforming a retail product ad into a powerful stand for democracy.
Anthropic (Claude): A Time and a Place
Anthropic reframes the anxiety of modern complexity as the ultimate catalyst for human creativity, positioning Claude not as a replacement for thought, but as the essential partner that empowers people to keep thinking through their most difficult problems.