AVN Award

The AVN Awards are movie awards sponsored and presented by the American adult video industry trade magazine AVN (Adult Video News) to recognize achievement in various aspects of the creation and marketing of American pornographic movies. They are called the "Oscars of porn".

The awards are divided into nearly 100 categories some of which are analogous to (non-Adult) industry awards offered in other film and video genres and others that are specific to pornographic/erotic film and video.

AVN sponsored the first AVN Awards ceremony in February 1984. The award ceremony occurs in early January during the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Since 2008, the ceremony has aired in a form edited for time on Showtime, which is usually broadcast in a 90-minute timeslot.

Awards for gay adult video were a part of the AVN Awards from the 1986 ceremony through the 1998 ceremony. The increasing number of categories made the show unwieldy and for the 1999 ceremony AVN Magazine began hosting the GayVN Awards, an annual adult movie award event for gay adult video. However, it appears that the GayVN Awards have been discontinued with the last award year being that of 2010.

29th AVN Awards

The 29th AVN Awards ceremony, presented by Adult Video News, honored the best pornographic movies and adult entertainment products of 2011 of the United States and took place January 21, 2012, at a new venue, The Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Paradise, Nevada. Movies or products released between Oct. 1, 2010 and Sept. 30, 2011 were eligible. The ceremony was televised in the United States by Showtime. Comedian Dave Attell hosted the show for the second time. He first presided over the 27th ceremony held in 2010, and shared the 29th ceremony with co-hosts Bree Olson and Sunny Leone. The awards show was held together with the Adult Entertainment Expo and Internext at the same venue.

On January 11, 2012, AVN announced in a press release that for the first time the AVN Awards ceremony would climax with "the presentation of an all-encompassing grand accolade," Movie of the Year. "Even since the beginning, when we presented separate awards for Best Film and Best Video Feature, there's been no definitive AVN Award equivalent to Best Picture. Now we have one," said AVN senior editor Peter Warren. Rather than nominees, contenders would be chosen from the winners in the categories of: Best All-Sex Release, Best All-Sex Release – Mixed Format, Best All-Girl Release, Best Gonzo Release, Best Vignette Release, Best Comedy, Best Feature, Best Foreign Feature, Best Parody – Comedy and Best Parody – Drama. Voting for Movie of the Year would be conducted just prior to the January 21 ceremony, in a secret meeting of core members of the AVN Awards committee, to ensure winners of the 10 categories remain secret until their presentation. The event would also unveiled a new annual award, the Visionary Award, "created to recognize and honor a leader in adult entertainment who has propelled innovation and taken his company—and the business as a whole—to new heights."