diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index 5276145a..1b4b82c3 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -1216,6 +1216,7 @@ Changelog
 * `0.7.0-dev`_
     * Added ``--ignore-stdin``.
     * Added support for auth plugins.
+    * Improved ``Content-Disposition`` parsing for ``--download`` mode.
 * `0.6.0`_ (2013-06-03)
     * XML data is now formatted.
     * ``--session`` and ``--session-read-only`` now also accept paths to
diff --git a/httpie/downloads.py b/httpie/downloads.py
index 5c16cb2a..acce1243 100644
--- a/httpie/downloads.py
+++ b/httpie/downloads.py
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ import sys
 import mimetypes
 import threading
 from time import sleep, time
+from mailbox import Message
 
 from .output import RawStream
 from .models import HTTPResponse
@@ -104,11 +105,14 @@ def filename_from_content_disposition(content_disposition):
 
     """
     # attachment; filename=jkbr-httpie-0.4.1-20-g40bd8f6.tar.gz
-    match = re.search('filename=(\S+)', content_disposition)
-    if match and match.group(1):
-        fn = match.group(1).strip('."')
-        if re.match('^[a-zA-Z0-9._-]+$', fn):
-            return fn
+
+    msg = Message('Content-Disposition: %s' % content_disposition)
+    filename = msg.get_filename()
+    if filename:
+        # Basic sanitation.
+        filename = os.path.basename(filename).lstrip('.').strip()
+        if filename:
+            return filename
 
 
 def filename_from_url(url, content_type):
diff --git a/tests/tests.py b/tests/tests.py
index 3cba88e3..a269641c 100755
--- a/tests/tests.py
+++ b/tests/tests.py
@@ -1562,9 +1562,16 @@ class DownloadUtilsTest(BaseTestCase):
             parse('attachment; filename=".hello-WORLD_123.txt"'),
             'hello-WORLD_123.txt'
         )
+        self.assertEqual(
+            parse('attachment; filename="white space.txt"'),
+            'white space.txt'
+        )
+        self.assertEqual(
+            parse(r'attachment; filename="\"quotes\".txt"'),
+            '"quotes".txt'
+        )
+        self.assertEqual(parse('attachment; filename=/etc/hosts'), 'hosts')
         self.assertIsNone(parse('attachment; filename='))
-        self.assertIsNone(parse('attachment; filename=/etc/hosts'))
-        self.assertIsNone(parse('attachment; filename=hello@world'))
 
     def test_filename_from_url(self):
         self.assertEqual(filename_from_url(