The 2022 AVN Award Nominations

And here we go with the granddaddy awards show – the one they call The Oscars of Porn. On January 22, 2022 the porn world will virtually gather to celebrate the work done by members of the adult film community. And we’re here to bring you our annual annotated guide.

This is not the exhaustive list of nominees – it’s just a subset of the performers and titles in categories that we track in the database.  The full list of nominees can be found at the AVN Awards site.

(Disclosure: we’re voters again this year. Please, no wagering.)

Our breakdowns of the nominees:

Acting Awards

Best Leading Actor

Best Leading Actress

Best Actor – Featurette

Best Actress – Featurette

Best Supporting Actor

Best Supporting Actress

Best Thespian – Trans/X

Best Non-Sex Performance

Directing Categories

Director of the Year

Best Directing – Banner/Network

Best Directing – International Production

Best Directing – Narrative Production

Best Directing – Non-Narrative Production

Best Movies

Grand Reel

Best Featurette

Best Anal Movie or Limited Series

Best Anthology Movie or Limited Series

Best BDSM Movie or Limited Series

Best Curve Appeal Movie or Limited Series

Best Group Sex Movie or Limited Series

Best Gonzo/Compendium Movie or Limited Series

Best Ingenue Movie or Limited Series

Best Lesbian Movie or Limited Series

Best MILF Movie or Limited Series

Best Mixed-Age Fantasy Movie or Limited Series

Best Niche Movie or Limited Series

Best Star Showcase

Best Taboo Relations Movie or Limited Series

Mark Stone Award for Outstanding Comedy

Performers of the Year

Female Performer of the Year

Male Performer of the Year

Best Male Newcomer

MILF Performer of the Year

Lesbian Performer of the Year

Niche Performer of the Year

Best New Starlet

Trans Categories

Trans Performer of the Year

Best Trans Group Sex Scene

Best Trans Movie or Limited Series

Best Trans Newcomer

Best Trans One-on-One Sex Scene

Best Trans Series or Channel

International Categories

Best International Production

International Female Performer of the Year

International Male Performer of the Year

Best New International Starlet

Best International Anal Sex Scene

Best International Boy/Girl Sex Scene

Best International Group Sex Scene

Best International Lesbian Sex Scene

Production Categories

Best Art Direction

Best Cinematography

Best Editing

Best Makeup

Best Screenplay

Best Screenplay – Featurette

Best Soundtrack

Clever Title of the Year

Mainstream Venture of the Year

Best Scenes

Best Anal Sex Scene

Best Blowbang Scene

Best Boy/Girl Sex Scene

Best Double Penetration Sex Scene

Best Foursome/Orgy Sex Scene

Best Gangbang Scene

Best Girl/Girl Sex Scene

Best Lesbian Group Sex Scene

Best Oral Sex Scene

Best POV Sex Scene

Best Solo/Tease Performance

Best Tag-Team Sex Scene

Best Three-Way Sex Scene

Best Virtual Reality Sex Scene

Most Outrageous Sex Scene

Our Picks for the 2021 AVN Awards

Oh, it’s been quite a year. I’m not talking about the pandemic but the actual amount of reviewing that it takes to vote for the AVN Awards. As AVN founder, Paul Fishbein, once said, “It is a very long, horrible process”. You would think that with production stoppages this year there would be less things to vote on, but there seemed to be even more categories with 10-15 nominations in each. Apparently, everyone on the nomination committee worked for Oprah at one time, but you can’t please everyone. Sure, we have the option of not voting in every category – this year we voted in 69 of 89 categories – but you still have to watch all 10-15 nominees in order to fairly rank them in that category!

AVN doesn’t give us guidelines on how to vote so every voter has a different criteria on what they look for. As I mentioned last year, and for all of you analytic-minded masturbating prognosticators out there, I use a hybrid clinical approach in judging the technical aspects in the production and director categories and an overall feel for the scene and performer categories. People have asked whether voters have biases based on their experiences with the industry, and the answer is of course we do. Experience does impact how we view a product. No one has offered us blowjobs or even a handjob for a vote though, but that’s a lot of work to coordinate even for those that have publicists. Most of the performers just know me as a photographer while the producers/directors tend to be more savvy in their discussions around me.

But for the sake of transparency and further rumour mongering, here are some of our picks for the 2021 AVN Awards:

Movies

I wish Rocco would come to America more. He is a legend and his performing prime may be behind him, but you get see the excitement of the American performers that get to work with him which we don’t see as much in his European work. Jane Wilde is such a filthy performer and Jonni Darko, who I believe is the most technically adept director out there, make a great pairing for her showcase.

Directing

I realise that feature directors have a very difficult job juggling more factors on their sets than their gonzo, umm I’m sorry, non-narrative counterparts. However, I still place a lot of weight on the heat of their scenes/movies which is why I favour someone like Miles Long or Chris Streams who show a workmanlike approach to their craft; technically proficient in capturing the heat without being glossy or abstract. I also find that female directors/producers like Casey and Scarlett are stronger at answering the “Why are these people having sex?” premise beyond “THEY ARE HOT & HORNY!” and bridging the “Why are they taking so long to have sex?” filler that differentiates features from gonzo non-narratives.

Acting

Angela White would have made an excellent phone sex operator in the days before we had camming. Her dialogue and charisma would turn a eunuch on. I think it’s the Australian accent. Penny Pax has shown great range in the movies I’ve watched over the years. She can go from shy housewife to goofy nerd to seductive vixen. Even though Mainstream Venture is not a traditional acting category, Lily Labeau was the only nominee there for her acting. I found her acting chops and comic timing appropriate in the series where she switches between being the straight woman and comic foil.

Performing

After the year we had, I didn’t want to repeat any winners from 2020 so we voted for a new group of performers. Mary Moody is the first performer chosen that I knew mainly from camming. Every time I see her in public at the conventions, her delighted interactions with her cam colleagues also translated into her partnerships in scenes. She is very easy on the eyes and incredibly nice to boot. Anna de Ville and Erik Everhard, both veterans of American porn, continue to put out great scenes in Europe. I would be hanging out at my buddy’s house all the time as a kid if Sarah Vandella was his mom. Last, I am a big fan of Kenna James’s scenes. They do not involve much theatrics, but there is something about how her squinty eyes, the curl of her lips, and crooked smile contribute to her girl next door charm and accessibility. Her costars, men or women, all seem to be really into her. I may be clumsy compared to say Don Juan DeMarko in describing her appeal, but there was a reason why she was Penthouse Pet of the Year and why we feel she should be Female Performer of the Year.

Good luck to all of the nominees we supported.

The 2021 AVN Award Nominees

And here we go with the granddaddy awards show – the one they call The Oscars of Porn. On January 23, 2021 the porn world will virtually gather to celebrate the work done by members of the adult film community. And we’re here to bring you our annual annotated guide.

Hats off to this year’s nominating committee, no errors that we found!

This is not the exhaustive list of nominees – it’s just a subset of the performers and titles in categories that we track in the database.  The full list of nominees can be found at the AVN Awards site.

(Disclosure: we’re voters again this year. Please, no wagering.)

Our breakdowns of the nominees:

Grand Reel

All-Girl Performer of the Year

Best Actor – Featurette

Best Actress – Featurette

Best All-Girl Group Sex Scene

Best All-Girl Movie or Anthology

Best Anal Movie or Anthology

Best Anal Sex Scene

Best Art Direction

Best BDSM Movie or Anthology

Best Blowbang Scene

Best Boy/Girl Sex Scene

Best Cinematography

Best Curve Appeal Movie or Anthology

Best Directing – Comedy

Best Directing – Drama

Best Directing – Foreign Production

Best Directing – Non-Narrative Production

Best Directing – Site/Network Content

Best Double Penetration Sex Scene

Best Editing

Best Episodic Movie or Anthology

Best Featurette

Best Female Mixed-Age Movie or Anthology

Best Foreign Production

Best Foreign-Shot All-Girl Sex Scene

Best Foreign-Shot Anal Sex Scene

Best Foreign-Shot Boy/Girl Sex Scene

Best Foreign-Shot Group Sex Scene

Best Gangbang Scene

Best Girl/Girl Sex Scene

Best Gonzo/Wall-to-Wall Movie or Anthology

Best Gonzo/Wall-to-Wall Series or Site

Best Group Sex Movie or Anthology

Best Group Sex Scene

Best Ingenue Movie or Anthology

Best Leading Actor

Best Leading Actress

Best Makeup

Best Male Newcomer

Best MILF Movie or Anthology

Best New Foreign Starlet

Best New Starlet

Best Niche Movie or Anthology

Best Non-Sex Performance

Best Oral Movie or Anthology

Best Oral Sex Scene

Best POV Sex Scene

Best Quarantine Sex Scene

Best Screenplay – Comedy

Best Screenplay – Drama

Best Solo/Tease Performance

Best Soundtrack

Best Special Effects

Best Squirting Movie or Anthology

Best Star Showcase

Best Supporting Actor

Best Supporting Actress

Best Taboo Relations Movie or Anthology

Best Three-Way Sex Scene – B/B/G

Best Three-Way Sex Scene: G/G/B

Best Transgender Group Sex Scene

Best Transgender Movie or Anthology

Best Transgender One-on-One Sex Scene

Best Virtual Reality Sex Scene

Clever Title of the Year

Director of the Year

Female Foreign Performer of the Year

Female Performer of the Year

Mainstream Venture of the Year

Male Foreign Performer of the Year

Male Performer of the Year

MILF Performer of the Year

Most Outrageous Sex Scene

Niche Performer of the Year

Transgender Performer of the Year

AVN 2020

Two weeks along with a bout of the AVN flu have passed and I still feel fatigue from thinking about the show. Must be because of all the “lived experiences” that happened in the frenzy of that week.

Adult Entertainment Expo

Photos on Flickr

In reviewing my photos, I can see the mortality of continuing to cover the show. I took much less photos this year, not because the show was smaller (it was only slightly smaller than last year). I had broken my foot in September, and it started swelling again during the show. I was content to have longer conversations with my friends and then allowed random people to stop me from doing what I did best which is take more photos. I even had an assistant for the first time which unintentionally slowed things since everyone tried to flirt with him. This, in turn, led me to see less of my industry friends overall.

The most popular people signing were Angela White, Riley Reid, Abella Danger, and Adriana Chechik. I don’t like cutting in line, but I did for the first three because they agreed to it beforehand while the logistics of doing so with Adriana due to the placement of the Evil Angel booth was impossible. If I were to line up to see all of them in a day, it would take a combined 2-4 hours of waiting to see them. They are popular not just for what they do on the screen, but how they interact with the fans. Riley absolutely crushed it by signing for her own booth from opening to closing every day despite a bout of food poisoning on the second day.

Jules Jordan had the best booth overall in terms of talent and access. Angela had her lines there. The Evil Angel – Manyvids corridor was the most frustrating since it wasn’t navigable whenever Adriana was signing. Having the Manyvids women elevated inside their booths made them inaccessible in general.

AVN Awards

I attended the AVN Awards for the first time in four years. It felt weird going this time as a guest without my camera, but it was fun to catch up with friends that I didn’t talk as much to on the convention floor. There weren’t too many surprises with the winners since I knew many of the voters. Even though we didn’t practice groupthink, there seemed to be a consensus around specific winners in polling the voters.

Congratulations to Angela for winning Female Performer of the Year for the third straight time and to Charlotte Stokely for repeating as G/G Performer of the Year. Congrats also go to Gianna Dior for winning Best New Starlet.

About Ginger Banks

I used to spend a lot of time on camsites. So when I first met Ginger Banks nearly five years ago in Dallas, I knew her as the girl who cammed from her university library. I’m not sure exactly how we hit it off, but I found her to be more mature and adept at engaging people than the typical camgirl I meet at cons. The years go by, and Ginger became more prominent advocating on issues pertaining to the adult industry. If you have read an article about performer rights or mental health in the past three years, Ginger is likely to be quoted. Why do I bring this up?

Because I photographed her before the con! She was a riot. If you would like to see more of the photoset including the naughty, it’s probably on her onlyfans.

Acknowledgements

I would like to give a shoutout to my boys at IAFD, ADT, and XCritic. I’d also like to thank Mark Spiegler, Miles Long, and Evil Angel for their hospitality that week.

Thank you to Ginger, Paige Owens, Kira Noir, and Jocelyn Sweets for making magic with me.

Our Picks for the 2020 AVN Awards

AVN voting is a horrible process to go through which may be surprising to the casual fan. You can’t just pick your favourites to watch and vote from there, you basically have to watch everything to be at least fair to the nominees since AVN and most other awards I know of use a ranking system to voting.

Watching this much porn makes me want to claw my eyes out. I use a hybrid clinical approach in judging the technical aspects in the production and director categories and an overall feel for the scene and performer categories. When I mean feel, I don’t mean touch myself because porn reviewing is like wine tasting. Not only are there not enough hours in the day, can you properly assess the next item if you already blew your load? This is the reverse There’s Something About Mary dilemma!

With that said, for the sake of transparency, here are some of our picks for the 2020 AVN Awards:

Movies

Best Action/ Thriller: Derelict, Kink/Digital Sin
Best Comedy: Babysitter Auditions 2, BurningAngel/Exile
Best Drama: Adelaide, MissaX
Best Parody: The Gang Makes a Porno: A DP XXX Parody, Digital Playground/Pulse
Best Romance: Holding Out & Giving In, Bellesa/Mile High
Best Star Showcase: Angela White: Dark Side, Jules Jordan Video

Joanna Angel and company (Burning Angel) make underrated comedy. Angel has been called the Sarah Silverman of porn, but the problem was I didn’t like Sarah’s neurotic comedy. I didn’t get Angel’s deprecating goofy hipster (ALT!) comedy when she first arrived on the scene, but 15 years go by, and the irreverent satire now seems smart and relevant.

Directing

Best Director – Comedic Production: The Gang Makes a Porno: A DP XXX Parody, Digital Playground/Pulse; Vic Lagina
Best Director – Dramatic Production: Drive, Deeper/Pulse; Kayden Kross
Best Director – Foreign Production: Rebecca, An Indecent Story, Marc Dorcel/Wicked; Alis Locanta
Best Director – Gonzo/Anthology Production: Angela Loves Women 5, AGW Entertainment; Angela White
Best Director – Web Channel/Site: Miles Long, BangBros.com
Director of the Year: Manuel Ferrara

Director of the Year was a toss-up between husband/wife, Manuel and Kayden, the latter picked for Dramatic Production. I just preferred Manu’s RAWer body of work.

If it wasn’t for these award nominations, you would never know many of the directors behind some of the most popular web channels since they don’t go out of the way to promote the directors of their particular scenes. I appreciate Miles Long’s technical proficiency at Bangbros, and he understands the heat of the action without being glossy or abstract.

[Miles also goes out of his way to keep us in the loop of what he’s produced and released. We would love to see more producer/directors credited for their web content. We are curious to the reasoning behind leaving these credits out. – Jeff]

Acting

Best Actor – Featurette: Nathan Bronson, Dibs on Mom, Pure Taboo/AdultTime.com
Best Actress – Featurette: Joanna Angel, Maid of Honor (Dysfunctional Marriage | DVD), Pure Taboo/Pulse
Best Leading Actor: Danny D., Uninvited, Digital Playground/Pulse
Best Leading Actress: 4 way tie between Lacy Lennon, Kristen Scott, Angela White, and Whitney Wright
Best Supporting Actor: Tommy Pistol, The Gang Makes a Porno: A DP XXX Parody, Digital Playground/Pulse
Best Supporting Actress: Nina Hartley, Confessions of a Sinful Nun 2: The Rise of Sister Mona, Sweetheart/Mile High

I think there is some irony that the two best actors in porn, Tommy & Nina, were our picks for best supporting actor and actress. We couldn’t find consensus for Best Leading Actress.

Performing

All-Girl Performer of the Year: Charlotte Stokely
Best Male Newcomer: Alex Jett
Best New Foreign Starlet: Jia Lissa
Best New Starlet: Gianna Dior
Female Foreign Performer of the Year: Anna de Ville
Female Performer of the Year: Angela White
Male Foreign Performer of the Year: Danny D.
Male Performer of the Year: Manuel Ferrara
MILF Performer of the Year: Tie between Cherie DeVille & India Summer
Niche Performer of the Year: Lance Hart
Transgender Performer of the Year: Natalie Mars

Speaking of irony, we chose an American in Anna de Ville as the best “foreign” female performer because she is indeed the best performer outside the United States. We also chose Lance Hart as niche performer of the year, because he does everything and then goes home to (service) a loving wife in Charlotte Sartre.

We picked Gianna Dior out of a competitive field for Best New Starlet just like she would always pick Auburn over Alabama in the Iron Bowl. I believe she would represent the industry well in years to come.

You would think we were Warren Buffet, with tried and true picks like Stokely, Ferrara, and White to repeat as performers of the year. I just like their experience and professionality in putting forth a great scene in such a volatile industry and world today.