Mad Movies is a French magazine created in 1972 by Jean-Pierre Putters, dedicated to fantastic and science-fiction cinema.^[1]

Mad Movies started as a fanzine and put out 21 issues between 1972 and 1981.^[1]

In 1979, Putters opened Movies 2000, a film bookstore that became a hotspot for Paris' horror fandom and fanzine trading community.^[2]

From number 22 (February 1982), Mad Movies became a quarterly newsstand publication.^[1] That first widely distributed issue featured a cover story about Italian director Lucio Fulci, which coined the term "Poet of the Macabre" (French: Poête du macabre), an Edgar Allan Poe-inspired nickname that has become one of the director's signatures.^[3][4]

The magazine became bimonthly in 1984.^[5] Between 1986 and 2001, it was published alternately with a spinoff called Impact.^[5] In 2001, following the sale of both magazines by Putters, new ownership merged Impact into Mad Movies, the latter thus becoming a monthly title.^[5]

Following his departure from Mad Movies, Jean-Pierre Putters co-founded Metaluna. The Metaluna brand, which took its name from a fictional planet in This Island Earth, encompassed a short-lived magazine dedicated to b-movies,^[11] a film production house active between 2007 and 2017,^[12] as well as a store (which replaced Movies 2000).^[2]
Among Metaluna's productions was Among The Living^[13] from directors Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, the latter a former Mad Movies writer.^[14] As of 2021, the store still exists under different ownership.^[15]

In the 1980s, Mad Movies organized an 8mm film festival, held at various Parisian theaters.^[16]
Between 2003 and 2013, the magazine sponsored a special Mad Movies prize at the Neuchatel International Fantastic Film Festival. At its inception, it was part of the festival's Asian cinema competition. Later worldwide films became eligible.^[17]
Mad Movies has been a founding partner of the Paris International Fantastic Film Festival (PIFFF), established in 2011.^[18]

• L'Écran fantastique