Since the late 20th century, the number of movies and tv series portraying entrepreneurial stories has grown exponentially, creating a new field still underrepresented by the current academic literature, termed as 'brand movies'. Through an analysis of over eighty movies and television series centered on brands, this paper seeks to uncover the general principles and tacit conventions that underpin this genre.

The study follows a funnel-shaped approach, starting from the theories of media and business communication, and progressively refining its inquiry to provide a granular exploration of the characteristics, scope, distribution, and historical antecedents of the phenomenon, culminating in an in-depth case study of the iconic Italian automotive brand Ferrari. The text answers the questions of what, when, and why about the rise of brand movies, concluding that they represent a new, and in some ways extreme, form of convergence between advertising and movie and television production, benefiting both parties involved.

Companies should therefore promote and collaborate on these productions, able to emotionally engage an audience that is increasingly defining its identity through the brands it consumes. The expansive nature of the topic and the pervasiveness of the phenomenon provide broad opportunities for future research to explore its development and the definition of the biographical and autobiographical genre.