The MTV Movie Awards is a film awards show presented annually on MTV (Music Television). It also contains movie parodies that used official movie footage with hosts and other celebrities and music performances. The nominees are decided by a special panel at Tenth Planet Productions, the production company headed by Joel Gallen, who also created the MTV Movie Awards. Winners are decided by the general public. Presently voting is done through MTV's official website through a special Movie Awards link.

Unlike its sister event MTV Video Music Awards (which are broadcast live), the MTV Movie Awards (up to 2006) were taped and then broadcast a few days later. The entire production was taped in a completely different order than what the MTV viewing audience saw. For example, the show's host would tape all his/her monologues and introductions at one time, and all the musical acts would perform one after the other. Celebrities would often only appear at the live taping for the announcement of their award category, and members of the general audience fill their vacant seats during the other times. Through clever editing, MTV was able to present to its viewing audience an awards show which appears to be taped in live sequence, with celebrities sticking around for the whole show. This method of production allowed foul language to be edited from the show and also is more convenient for celebrities. The actual live taping aired same-day on pay-per-view channels in most metropolitan cities around the world. Some awards telecasts had also been shown in television syndication. However, in 2007, this changed, as MTV and Survivor producer Mark Burnett (who took over duties from Joel Gallen for the 2007 awards) announced the '07 edition would be broadcast live on MTV for the first time on June 3, 2007 in Los Angeles.

MTV has awarded at least three fictional characters their version of the Academy Honorary Award: Godzilla, Jason Voorhees, and Chewbacca. Jason was awarded the honor in 1992. Godzilla was awarded it in 1996, and Chewbacca followed in receiving the award the following year. (Carrie Fisher presented him with a medal identical to that which Han Solo and Luke Skywalker were given by Princess Leia, who was portrayed by Fisher, at the ceremony at the end of Star Wars. A long running joke is that Chewbacca never received his medal in the movie.) The category existed as a spoof award through 1997, where other recipients included Jackie Chan and Richard Roundtree. In 1998, Clint Howard was the last person given the award. The award was retired in 1998, but reemerged seven years later as the MTV Generation Award; Tom Cruise in 2005, Jim Carrey and Spike Lee in 2006, Mike Myers in 2007, and Adam Sandler for 2008. Most recently, Ben Stiller was honored for the current year, 2009.