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Plot Summary
Set in 1977, back when sex was safe, pleasure was a business and business was booming, idealistic porn producer Jack Horner aspires to elevate his craft to an art form. Horner discovers Eddie Adams, a hot young talent working as a busboy in a nightclub, and welcomes him into the extended family of movie-makers, misfits and hangers-on that are always around. Adams' rise from nobody to a celebrity adult entertainer is meteoric, and soon the whole world seems to know his porn alter ego, "Dirk Diggler". Now, when disco and drugs are in vogue, fashion is in flux and the party never seems to stop, Adams' dreams of turning sex into stardom are about to collide with cold, hard reality. Featuring an amazing, award-winning cast, including Mark Wahlberg ("The Departed", "We Own the Night"), Burt Reynolds ("Deliverance"), John C. Reilly ("Magnolia"), Julianne Moore ("Children of Men"), Philip Seymour Hoffman ("State & Main"), Don Cheadle ("Talk to Me"), William H. Macy ("Bobby"), and many more.
Credits
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Rotten Tomatoes Movie Reviews
TOMATOMETER
92%- Reviews Counted: 65
- Fresh: 60
- Rotten: 5
- Average Rating: 8.1/10
Top Critics' Reviews
Fresh: Everything about Boogie Nights is interestingly unexpected, even the few seconds of darkness before the film's neon title blasts onto the screen. The director, Paul Thomas Anderson, [displays talent that] is as big and exuberant as skywriting.
Fresh: Boogie Nights, an epic tale of porn, pleasure, and excess, offers a purer hit of exhilaration than any movie this year.
Fresh: A concise, vigorously told yarn with a strong point of view and a deftly juggled cast containing at least a few familiar faces.
Fresh: Considering the potentially explosive nature of the yarn, set in the porn world, Anderson's strategy is remarkably nonjudgmental and nonsensationalistic, largely due to his love and respect for all the characters and his impressive storytelling skills.
Customer Reviews
One of the finest movies of the 1990s and the best movie about the 1970s since the 1970s.
I suppose it's possible to fail to see how this film captured the hedonistic spirit of the 1970s and the almost palpable shift into consequences that characterized the 1980s, but I would argue that those for whom this is the case simply didn't live through the time. Or, if they did, they weren't living *in* the time. What is most remarkable about Boogie Nights, perhaps, is how Anderson--who was only something like 23 or 24 when he made this--channelled the details of the popular culture and social psychology of an era as if he were dictating them from the prior day's memories. Clearly, his film emerged from a deep nostalgia for something that marked his early childhood, and we are lucky that he held so tightly to his impressions. Nineteen seventy-seven was the apex of the Charlie's Angels craze, bralessness, disco, blue eyeliner pencil, skates, filmed porn, and the mythology of a carefree Southern California sun-culture that propelled it all. The deep sadness that lies at the core of this deceptively easy film--the disillusionment and price of empty pleasures and the need for a sense of family through it all--will resonate with anyone who's ever gone to far with anything in their lives (sex, drugs, love, spending, travel, you name it) and paid the price. it is an epic masterpiece, highly observant, and deeply American in its outlook. Although it was well-received when it was released, it was still underappreciated. Both Burt Reynolds and Julianne Moore were robbed of the Academy Award (losing to fine but now nearly forgotten performances by Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting and Kim Basinger in L.A. Confidential). Paul Thomas Anderson's loss to Matt Damon and Ben Afflect (Good Will Hunting) for Best Original Screenplay was, even then, scandalous to my mind. It seemed to be then, as now, like placing a higher price tag on a portrait-sized paint-by-numbers oil than on a magnificent, sprawling fresco with layers of shapes, colors and emotions. As absurdly, Boogie Nights was not even nominated for Best Picture. I wonder how many people who raved about the The Full Monty or As Good As It Gets (both nominated for 1997) still feel like these entertaining but comparatively insignificant films hold up as well as Boogie Nights? The supporting cast is extraordinary all around. Each character a fascinating, irregular pearl in a strand of human experience that if, it doesn't touch you, you're not looking closely enough.
As Perfect A Movie Can Be Made
This movie still blows me away. Few movies are near perfect and this is one of them, IMHO. Casting, directing, cinematography, acting, music, editing...... Burt Reynolds showed that he could still act. Marco Wahlberg showed that he COULD act. John C. Reilly, Don Cheadle, William H. Macy, Jillian Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman..... What cast!
There is a scene where William H. Macy must have messed up his lines. It's where his wife is in the driveway doing it and he complains to someone about it. If he messed up his lines, brilliant job to put that in the movie. If it was written that way, way more brilliant to the writer.
90's Must Have!
3 Oscar nominations: Supporting Actor & Actress, Screenplay. P.T. Anderson second movie directorial debut that shows the world of pornography that mirrors life of John Holmes. Not a biographical depiction of John Holmes but portraying the fictional character of Dirk Diggler. Anderson shows the screenplay by using camera shots that separates screenplay in the same time frame while utilizing the soundtrack to bring out the action within the scene. Awesome soundtrack from one-hit wonders in the 70's and 80's. The all-star cast shows their first ascending rise to stardom in this must see great movie of all time to come out of the 90s.
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Also Available
- Boogie Nights (Music From the Original Motion Picture)
- Various Artists