Knight Publishing Corp. had launched Adam magazine in 1956 as an attempt to follow Playboy's success.

[1] Originally, like Playboy, the publication also covered mainstream films and included feature stories on stars such as Orson Welles or Judy Garland.

[4] Adam Film World was called "one of the industry's leading trade publications" in 1994 by the Associated Press.

[5] In his 2001 book Pornography and Sexual Representation, Joseph Slade states, "Extremely valuable are the reports, reviews and gossip of Adam Film World and Adult Video Guide, the oldest American monthly devoted to explicit cinema and generally more reliable than similar magazines, though the information on actors and actresses should be approached with caution.

Best described as a fan magazine, Adam Film World hypes the careers of performers for a credulous audience, but partly for that reason it is unparalleled as a guide to the mores and customs of the porn subculture.

"[6] Slade pointed out that the magazine's interviews with performers were, to an extent, similar to celebrity interviews in popular mainstream magazines: "Actors and actresses usually begin by talking about their parents, their adolescence, their own children, lovers, the importance of grooming, then move on to discussions of augmented breasts, relative penis sizes, favorite costars and directors, referred techniques of oral, vaginal, or anal sex, striptease dancing on tour as a sideline and—most important—their fan clubs or their 900-telephone numbers.

The annuals were "important directories of...hard-core films and videos of the previous eighteen months, with lists of notable films of the past, capsule reviews that rate eroticism from 'warm' to 'volcanic,' addresses of distributors and retail outlets, brief biographies of actors, directors, and producers and indexes by theme, director, and performer.

[9] Connelly, as Stone, was inducted into the X-Rated Critics Organization Hall of Fame in the Fifth Estate category in 1998.

[11] The Adam Film World annual X-Caliber Awards based their selection of winners "largely on the votes of readers who are members of the audiences of the adult theaters.

[13] The winners were announced annually starting with the August 1976 issue for films released the previous year.

The final awards, for movies released in 2007, were published in the July 2008 issue of Adam Film World Guide.

Café Flesh 3 The Masseuse (Vivid) The Masseuse The Collector (Wicked) (Adam & Eve/Digital Playground) The New Devil In Miss Jones (Vivid) The Prisoner (Metro) Darkside (Red Light District Video) Darkside (SexZ Pictures) Corruption Wonderland (Metro) Sex Pix (Red Light District) Corruption (Sex-Z Pictures) Upload Black Widow (Wicked) Operation Desert Stormy (Wicked) Coming Home (Wicked) Adam Black Video Directory was an annual publication produced from 1998 to 2007, which grew out of Adam Black Video Illustrated.

[24] ^1 Some of the terminology used by Adam Film World for some of the awards was deleted or replaced by something less vulgar in these instances.