19th AVN Awards

Winners and nominees

The nominees for the 19th AVN Awards were announced on November 9, 2002. Taboo 2001 and Underworld tied for the most nominations with 12 each, followed by Bad Wives 2, Fade to Black and Taken which each received 11. Euphoria followed with nine and Beast, Marissa and Unreal had eight apiece.

The winners were announced during the awards ceremony on January 11, 2002. Paul Thomas's win for Best Director—Film was his third; he won previously for Justine (1993) and Bobby Sox (1996). Nikita Denise was first European actress to win Female Performer of the Year.

Major awards

Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger ().

Additional Award Winners

These awards were announced, but not presented, in two pre-recorded winners-only segments shown on the ballroom's video monitors during the event. Trophies were given to the recipients off-stage:

Reuben Sturman Award

Hall of Fame

AVN Hall of Fame inductees for 2002 were: Christoph Clark, Patrick Collins, Raquel Darrian, Samantha Fox, Janine Lindemulder, Missy, Michael Ninn, Rocco Siffredi, P. J. Sparxxx, Randy Spears, Tianna

Presenters and performers

The following individuals, listed in order of appearance, presented awards or performed musical numbers, comedy or tributes. The show's trophy girls were Carmen Luvana and Monique Alexander.

Ceremony information

The awards show was held on the four-month anniversary of New York and Washington terrorist attacks and as such, began with a pre-recorded video tribute to post 9/11 U.S.A. featuring industry stars offering personal tributes to the country.

The show was not without its share of controversies. To keep the length of the show as short as possible by limiting the number of awards presented on stage, about 50 of the awards split into two groupings are announced in rapid succession on a screen with awards handed out later. In the first of these groupings the announcements were made by the animated characters of 2 Funky 4 U, a forthcoming animated feature by Private North America. However, some of the animated characters "offended some audience members as being allegedly rascist."

Later, Snoop Dogg generated excitement by appearing on stage to accept the award for Best Selling Tape of 2001. After returning to his seat he was thronged by about 100 fans eager to meet or congratualte him, obstructing the view of people sitting behind, although the crowd did disperse without incident.

Then AVN publisher Paul Fishbein went on stage to present the Reuben Sturman Memorial Special Achievement Award to Cincinnati retailer Elyse Metcalf. Fishbein gave a recap of her high-profile obscenity trial and acquittal in the previous year but Metcalf gave the show an awkward moment because she was not there to accept the honor. Metcalf had left earlier "after becoming upset over remarks made to her by a financial supporter."

The show was recorded for later broadcast and a video of the awards show was issued by VCA Pictures.

Performance of year's movies

Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle was announced as the adult movie industry's top selling movie and Island Fever was the top renting movie of the previous year.

In Memoriam

John Leslie and Joey Silvera ended the show by asking for a moment of silence in memory of late director Alex de Renzy who had died in 2001.