diff --git a/DOCS/man/en/mplayer.1 b/DOCS/man/en/mplayer.1
index 19060a3..68743f0 100644
--- a/DOCS/man/en/mplayer.1
+++ b/DOCS/man/en/mplayer.1
@@ -707,6 +707,13 @@ the file that is being played.
 May be dangerous if playing from untrusted media.
 .
 .TP
+.B \-unsafe-playlists
+Enables playlist parsing and handling code that has not been checked to be
+exploit-free.
+Since currently arbitrary URLs are allowed in playlists, all playlist code is
+considered unsafe for now.
+.
+.TP
 .B "\-v\ \ \ \ \ "
 Increment verbosity level, one level for each \-v
 found on the command line.
diff --git a/cfg-mplayer.h b/cfg-mplayer.h
index b1d2442..87ee6fc 100644
--- a/cfg-mplayer.h
+++ b/cfg-mplayer.h
@@ -261,6 +261,8 @@ m_option_t mplayer_opts[]={

        {"use-filedir-conf", &use_filedir_conf, CONF_TYPE_FLAG, CONF_GLOBAL, 0, 1, NULL},
        {"nouse-filedir-conf", &use_filedir_conf, CONF_TYPE_FLAG, CONF_GLOBAL, 1, 0, NULL},
+       {"unsafe-playlists", &unsafe_playlists, CONF_TYPE_FLAG, CONF_GLOBAL, 0, 1, NULL},
+       {"nounsafe-playlists", &unsafe_playlists, CONF_TYPE_FLAG, CONF_GLOBAL, 1, 0, NULL},
 #ifdef CRASH_DEBUG
        {"crash-debug", &crash_debug, CONF_TYPE_FLAG, CONF_GLOBAL, 0, 1, NULL},
        {"nocrash-debug", &crash_debug, CONF_TYPE_FLAG, CONF_GLOBAL, 1, 0, NULL},
diff --git a/mplayer.c b/mplayer.c
index c0ca8d5..2c85318 100644
--- a/mplayer.c
+++ b/mplayer.c
@@ -84,6 +84,7 @@ int slave_mode=0;
 int player_idle_mode=0;
 int quiet=0;
 int enable_mouse_movements=0;
+int unsafe_playlists;

 #ifdef WIN32
 char * proc_priority=NULL;
@@ -2862,7 +2863,7 @@ if (edl_output_filename) {
   if ( use_gui ) guiGetEvent( guiSetStream,(char *)mpctx->stream );
 #endif

-  if(mpctx->file_format == DEMUXER_TYPE_PLAYLIST) {
+  if(unsafe_playlists && mpctx->file_format == DEMUXER_TYPE_PLAYLIST) {
     play_tree_t* entry;
     // Handle playlist
     current_module="handle_playlist";
@@ -2950,7 +2951,7 @@ mpctx->demuxer=demux_open(mpctx->stream,mpctx->file_format,audio_id,video_id,dvd

 // HACK to get MOV Reference Files working

-if (mpctx->demuxer && mpctx->demuxer->type==DEMUXER_TYPE_PLAYLIST)
+if (unsafe_playlists && mpctx->demuxer && mpctx->demuxer->type==DEMUXER_TYPE_PLAYLIST)
 {
   unsigned char* playlist_entry;
   play_tree_t *list = NULL, *entry = NULL;