Synopsis
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.
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Cast
- Mark WahlbergEddie Adams / Dirk Diggler
- Julianne MooreAmber Waves
- Burt ReynoldsJack Horner
- Don CheadleBuck Swope
- John C. ReillyReed Rothchild
- William H. MacyLittle Bill
- Heather GrahamRollergirl
- Nicole Ari ParkerBecky Barnett
- Philip Seymour HoffmanScotty J.
- Luis GuzmánMaurice t.t. Rodriguez
Recommendations
- 100
New York Daily News
Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has perfectly wedded form to function by filming Boogie Nights in a style suggesting the grainy texture of porn and the ambivalence of the era. - 100
The A.V. Club
While it's very funny, Boogie Nights taps into something much deeper with its on-target depiction of the shifting political and social tides of the '70s and '80s and thoughtful relationships between characters. It's a deeply satisfying movie. - 90
TNT RoughCut
As lensed brillantly by 26-year-old Anderson, the movie is at once tasteful and raunchy. - 89
Austin Chronicle
From the second it begins, Boogie Nights seizes your senses and pulls you right in: no turning back, no time for debate, no regrets. - 88
San Francisco Examiner
I'm not sure all of this works out as convincingly as Anderson intends in the movie's somewhat unsatisfying ending, but getting there is a wickedly enjoyable journey. - 80
Chicago Reader
Notwithstanding its occasional grotesque nods to postmodernist convention, this is highly entertaining Hollywood filmmaking, full of spark and vigor. - 80
Time
So here's a tip for those attending this handsomely acted, epic-length little film. Ease into the sleaze, stare at the party animals, look but don't touch, and, oh, boogie all night. [October 6, 1997] - 70
Salon
Moore, who may be the most unpredictably talented actress in movies right now, plays Amber with an inseparable mixture of maternal feeling and lust that's flabbergasting.
