It is widely recognized that besides the quality of service (QoS), the energy efficiency is also a key parameter in designing and evaluating mobile multimedia communication systems, which has catalyzed great interest in recent literature. In this paper, an energy efficiency model is first proposed for multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal-frequency-division-multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) mobile multimedia communication systems with statistical QoS constraints. Employing the channel matrix singular-value-decomposition (SVD) method, all subchannels are classified by their channel characteristics. Furthermore, the multi-channel joint optimization problem in conventional MIMO-OFDM communication systems is transformed into a multi-target single channel optimization problem by grouping all subchannels. Therefore, a closed-form solution of the energy efficiency optimization is derived for MIMO-OFDM mobile mlutimedia communication systems. As a consequence, an energy-efficiency optimized power allocation (EEOPA) algorithm is proposed to improve the energy efficiency of MIMO-OFDM mobile multimedia communication systems. Simulation comparisons validate that the proposed EEOPA algorithm can guarantee the required QoS with high energy efficiency in MIMO-OFDM mobile multimedia communication systems.