MTV Video Music Award for Best Rock Video
The MTV Video Music Award for Best Rock Video was first given out in, and it was one of the four original genre categories added to the VMAs that year. In its first year, the award was called Best Heavy Metal Video, and from 1990 to 1995, it was renamed Best Metal/Hard Rock Video. The category underwent a third, brief name change in 1996, when it was renamed Best Hard Rock Video. Finally, in 1997 the award acquired its present name, Best Rock Video, and was presented as such until 2006, as the following year the VMAs were revamped and most original categories were eliminated. In 2008, though, MTV brought back this category, along with several of the others that were retired in 2007.
Aerosmith, Fall Out Boy, and Linkin Park are the biggest nominees of this award, with eight nominations apiece. Aerosmith, however, is also the biggest winner, with a total of four wins between 1990 and 1998. The Foo Fighters follow closely behind in terms of nominations, having received seven. In 1995, White Zombie's bassist Sean Yseult became the first woman to win. In 2014, New Zealand singer Lorde became the first female solo act to win the award with her music video "Royals".
Recipients
| Year | Winner | Nominees | Ref. |
| Guns N' Roses — "Sweet Child o' Mine" | |||
| Aerosmith — "Janie's Got a Gun" | |||
| Aerosmith — "The Other Side" | |||
| Metallica — "Enter Sandman" | |||
| Pearl Jam — "Jeremy" | |||
| Soundgarden — "Black Hole Sun" | |||
| White Zombie — "More Human than Human" | |||
| Metallica — "Until It Sleeps" | |||
| Aerosmith — "Falling in Love " | |||
| Aerosmith — "Pink" | |||
| Korn — "Freak on a Leash" | |||
| Limp Bizkit — "Break Stuff" | |||
| Limp Bizkit — "Rollin' " | |||
| Linkin Park — "In the End" | |||
| Linkin Park — "Somewhere I Belong" | |||
| Jet — "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" | |||
| Green Day — "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" | |||
| AFI — "Miss Murder" | |||
| — | — | ||
| Linkin Park — "Shadow of the Day" | |||
| Green Day — "21 Guns" | |||
| Thirty Seconds to Mars — "Kings and Queens" | |||
| Foo Fighters — "Walk" | |||
| Coldplay — "Paradise" | |||
| Thirty Seconds to Mars — "Up in the Air" | |||
| Lorde — "Royals" | |||
| Fall Out Boy — "Uma Thurman" | |||
| Twenty One Pilots — "Heathens" | |||
| Twenty One Pilots — "Heavydirtysoul" | |||
| 2018 | Imagine Dragons — "Whatever It Takes" | ||
| 2019 | Panic! at the Disco — "High Hopes" | ||
| 2020 | TBA |