Boogie Nights is a 1997 American period drama film written, directed, and co-produced by Paul Thomas Anderson.^[3] It is set in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley and focuses on a young nightclub dishwasher who becomes a popular star of pornographic films, chronicling his rise in the Golden Age of Porn of the 1970s through his fall during the excesses of the 1980s. The film is an expansion of Anderson's mockumentary short film The Dirk Diggler Story (1988),^[4][5][6][7] and stars Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds, Don Cheadle, John C. Reilly, William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Heather Graham.

Boogie Nights premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 1997, and was theatrically released on October 10, 1997, garnering critical acclaim. It was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Original Screenplay for Anderson, Best Supporting Actress for Moore, and Best Supporting Actor for Reynolds. The film's soundtrack also received acclaim. It has since been considered one of Anderson's best works and one of the best films of all time.^[8][9]

In 1977, high-school dropout Eddie Adams is living with his father and emotionally abusive mother in Torrance, California. He works at a Reseda nightclub owned by Maurice Rodriguez, where he meets porn filmmaker Jack Horner. Interested in bringing Eddie into porn, Jack auditions him by watching him have sex with Rollergirl, a porn starlet who always wears skates.

After a fight with his mother, Adams moves in with Horner at his San Fernando Valley home. Adams gives himself the screen name "Dirk Diggler" and becomes a star because of his good looks, youthful charisma, and abnormally large penis. His success allows him to buy a new house, an extensive wardrobe, and a "competition orange" 1977 Chevrolet Corvette. With his friend and co-star Reed Rothchild, Dirk pitches a series of successful action-themed porn films. He works and socializes with others from the porn industry, and they live carefree lifestyles in the late 1970s disco era. While attending a New Year's Eve party at Horner's house on December 31, 1979, assistant director Little Bill Thompson discovers his adulterous wife having sex with another man. Bill, tired of being repeatedly cheated on, shoots the pair dead and commits suicide.

Dirk and Reed begin using cocaine on a regular basis. Due to his drug use, Dirk finds it increasingly difficult to achieve an erection, falls into violent mood swings, and becomes irritated with Johnny Doe, a rival leading man Jack has recently recruited, and whom Dirk worries will replace him. In 1983, after arguing with Jack, Dirk is fired and takes off with Reed to start a music career along with Scotty, a boom operator who is in love with Dirk. Jack rejects business overtures from Floyd Gondolli, a local theater magnate who insists on cutting costs by shooting on videotape rather than film stock, because Jack believes that video will diminish the quality of his films.

After his friend and financier, Colonel James, is incarcerated for possession of child pornography, Jack cooperates with Gondolli but becomes disillusioned with the work he is expected to churn out. One of these projects involves Jack and Rollergirl riding in a limousine, searching for random men for her to have sex with while being taped by a crew. One man recognizes Rollergirl as a former high-school classmate, and after a failed attempt at intercourse, he insults her and Jack. Both Jack and Rollergirl attack the man, leaving him bloodied on the sidewalk.

Leading lady Amber Waves lands in a custody battle with her ex-husband. The court determines that she is an unfit mother due to her involvement in the porn industry, criminal record, and cocaine addiction. Buck Swope marries fellow porn star Jessie St. Vincent, who becomes pregnant. Because of his past as a pornographer, Buck is disqualified from a bank loan and cannot open his own stereo equipment store. That night, he finds himself in the middle of a holdup at a donut shop in which the clerk, the robber, and an armed customer are killed. Buck is the sole survivor and escapes with the money.

Having spent most of their money on drugs, Dirk and Reed are unable to pay a recording studio for demo tapes they believe will enable them to become music stars. Desperate for money, Dirk resorts to prostitution but is assaulted and robbed by three men. Dirk, Reed, and their friend Todd Parker attempt to scam local drug dealer Rahad Jackson at his estate by selling him a half-kilo of baking soda disguised as cocaine. Dirk and Reed intend to leave quickly before Rahad's bodyguard inspects it, but a drugged-up and armed Todd attempts to steal more money, as well as some more drugs, from Rahad. In the ensuing gunfight, Todd kills Rahad's bodyguard and is killed by Rahad, while Dirk and Reed narrowly escape. Dirk returns to Jack's home and they reconcile.

In 1984, Amber shoots the television commercial for the opening of Buck's store, Rollergirl takes a GED class, Maurice opens a nightclub with his brothers, Reed performs magic acts at a strip club, and Jessie gives birth to her and Buck's son. Dirk, Jack, and Amber prepare to start filming again.

The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was shown at the New York Film Festival, before opening on two screens in the U.S. on October 10, 1997. It grossed $50,168 during its opening weekend. Three weeks later, it expanded to 907 theaters and grossed $4.7 million, ranking number four for the week. It eventually earned $26.4 million in the U.S. and $16.7 million in foreign markets for a worldwide box office total of $43.1 million.^[21]

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 94% based on 77 reviews, with an average score of 8.10/10. The site's critical consensus states, "Grounded in strong characters, bold themes, and subtle storytelling, Boogie Nights is a groundbreaking film both for director P.T. Anderson and star Mark Wahlberg."^[22] On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted average score of 86 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".^[23] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.^[24]

Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote, "Everything about Boogie Nights is interestingly unexpected," although "the film's extravagant 2-hour 32-minute length amounts to a slight tactical mistake ... [it] has no trouble holding interest ... but the length promises larger ideas than the film finally delivers." She praised Burt Reynolds for "his best and most suavely funny performance in many years," and added, "The movie's special gift happens to be Mark Wahlberg, who gives a terrifically appealing performance."^[25]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times observed:

Few films have been more matter-of-fact, even disenchanted, about sexuality. Adult films are a business here, not a dalliance or a pastime, and one of the charms of Boogie Nights is the way it shows the everyday backstage humdrum life of porno filmmaking ... The sweep and variety of the characters have brought the movie comparisons to Robert Altman's Nashville and The Player. There is also some of the same appeal as Pulp Fiction in scenes that balance precariously between comedy and violence ... Through all the characters and all the action, Anderson's screenplay centers on the human qualities of the players ... Boogie Nights has the quality of many great films, in that it always seems alive.^[26]

Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle stated, "Boogie Nights is the first great film about the 1970s to come out since the '70s ... It gets all the details right, nailing down the styles and the music. More impressive, it captures the decade's distinct, decadent glamour ... [It] also succeeds at something very difficult: re-creating the ethos and mentality of an era ... Paul Thomas Anderson ... has pulled off a wonderful, sprawling, sophisticated film ... With Boogie Nights, we know we're not just watching episodes from disparate lives but a panorama of recent social history, rendered in bold, exuberant colors."^[27]

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called it "a startling film, but not for the obvious reasons. Yes, its decision to focus on the pornography business in the San Fernando Valley in the 1970s and 1980s is nerviness itself, but more impressive is the film's sureness of touch, its ability to be empathetic, nonjudgmental and gently satirical, to understand what is going on beneath the surface of this raunchy Nashville-esque universe and to deftly relate it to our own ... Perhaps the most exciting thing about Boogie Nights is the ease with which writer-director Anderson ... spins out this complex web. A true storyteller, able to easily mix and match moods in a playful and audacious manner, he is a filmmaker definitely worth watching, both now and in the future."^[28] In Time Out New York, Andrew Johnston concluded, "The porn milieu may scare some folks off, but Boogie Nights offers laughs, tenderness, terror and redemption--everything you could ask for in a movie. It's an impressive and satisfying film, one the Academy really ought to have the balls to recognize."^[29]

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said, "[T]his chunk of movie dynamite is detonated by Mark Wahlberg ... who grabs a breakout role and runs with it ... Even when Boogie Nights flies off course as it tracks its bizarrely idealistic characters into the '80s ... you can sense the passionate commitment at the core of this hilarious and harrowing spectacle. For this, credit Paul Thomas Anderson ... who ... scores a personal triumph by finding glints of rude life in the ashes that remained after Watergate. For all the unbridled sex, what is significant, timely and, finally, hopeful about Boogie Nights is the way Anderson proves that a movie can be mercilessly honest and mercifully humane at the same time."^[30]

Gene Siskel of Chicago Tribune called it "beautifully made" and praised the performances, calling Reynolds "absolutely centered and in control of his emotions" and saying Wahlberg "couldn't be better". However, he moderated his praise by saying, "The early rave reviews accorded this film suggest a significance that I, however, did not encounter. Show-biz stories are all pretty much the same: ambition, stardom, drugs, disillusionment. Add the home video revolution to this mix and curiosity about the size of the boy wonder's equipment; throw in a few topical references like the soft drink Fresca, and you have the bare bones of the story." He gave the film three and a half stars out of a possible four.^[31]

Wahlberg would later regret making the film, saying "I've made some poor choices in the past".^[32]

Two Boogie Nights soundtracks were released, the first at the time of the film's initial release and the second the following year. AllMusic rated the first soundtrack four and a half stars out of five^[59] and the second soundtrack four.^[60]

Personnel

• Paul Thomas Anderson – executive producer
• Karyn Rachtman – executive producer, music supervisor
• Liz Heller – executive producer^[61]
• Bobby Lavelle – music supervisor
• Carol Dunn – music coordinator

• The Pornographer
• Wonderland
• Lovelace
• List of films featuring fictional films
• American Eccentric Cinema