The ’90s: Boogie Nights

Boogie Nights is set in 1977. Sex was still safe, pleasure was an industry, and that industry was booming. Idealistic porn producer Jack Horner aspires to elevate his craft to an art form. Horner discovers Eddie Adams, a young and promising talent working as a table clearer in a nightclub, and welcomes him into his extended family of filmmakers, outsiders, and hangers-on. Adams’ rise from nobody to celebrated porn star is meteoric, and soon the whole world seems to know his porn alter ego, Dirk Diggler. Before long, Adams’ dreams of turning sex into stardom collide with the harsh reality of the 1980s.

Director Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another, There Will Be Blood) was only in his mid-twenties when he made this exhilarating ode to Los Angeles, the porn industry, and Martin Scorsese. Boogie Nights follows a structure similar to Goodfellas, with a young prospect joining a self-chosen family, only to eventually succumb to the temptations of money, crime, and cocaine. But Boogie Nights is also a portrait of a particular era and an industry that attracts starry-eyed newcomers – with a perfectly cast Mark Wahlberg in this case – but ultimately consumes the souls of everyone involved.

English spoken, not subtitled.