Boogie Nights

Opening with a bravura seven-minute travelling shot (inspired by I Am Cuba), Boogie Nights traces the rise and fall of one Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg), a prodigiously-endowed performer on the seventies porno movie scene. Burt Reynolds is the paternalistic pornographer who recognizes talent when he sees it, and sets Dirk on his way, welcoming him into his own extended family of performers and film crew (it speaks volumes that each of the large cast makes an impression, scoring laughs and pathos as we go).

Paul Thomas Anderson’s second feature is a big, flamboyant, erratic ensemble epic, a fresco of southern California’s suburban sprawl set in the San Fernando Valley where he grew up. This project began as a spoof Spinal Tap type doc Anderson made while he was still in high school, The Dirk Diggler Story. But a decade later it’s clear Anderson’s deepest inspiration is Robert Altman’s Nashville. Unlike Altman, PTA is looking back at the 1970s from afar… his lens is simultaneously cynical and celebratory, varnished with a mythic nostalgia. Scorsese inevitably figures too. Like GoodFellas, Boogie Nights gets off on its own druggy, disco high — then crashes down to earth with a bump.

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.

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

Nearly a quarter of a century later, Boogie Nights stands as one of the finest and most endlessly rewatchable films of the ’90s.

Kyle Smith, National Review, 2020