The mavericks of American advertising divulge the stories behind the most successful ad campaigns in history in this hugely entertaining and thought-provoking documentary.

It’s hard to fathom that each day we are bombarded with over 5,000 ads. We are exposed to them through magazines, newspapers, television, billboards, our cell phones and sneaky Internet offers. Most of them are immediately forgotten, but a few stick. Art & Copy explores what makes certain ad campaigns so much more effective than the rest. The geniuses behind “Just Do It,” “Got Milk?,” “I want my MTV!” and many other favorites explain how these catchy slogans came about and why they became embedded in our national psyche, whether we wanted them to or not. The film does a superb job explaining how the advertising world was transformed in the 1960s when innovative firms began putting their art designers and copy writers together, for the first time allowing them to conceptualize an ad campaign as a team. Whether you’re interested in advertising as fine art (Apple Computers’ 1984 Super Bowl commercial) or think of it as propaganda (Ronald Reagan’s “It’s Morning in America” campaign ad), this Sundance favorite is sure to enlighten you. -- Jennifer Steinberg