'''''Boogie Nights''''' is a 1997 film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. It follows a young porn star as he enters the pornographic film industry in the late 1970s and deals with the highs and lows of success.
Plot
The film depicts the pornographic film industry of the late 1970s and early 1980s as seen through the life of a young porn star, Dirk Diggler, who is played by Mark Wahlberg. This film details how he was discovered by porn director Jack Horner (based on William Margold), played by Burt Reynolds. It then shows how Diggler enters the business, his rise to stardom, and his eventual downfall, partly due to methamphetamine-induced paranoia and having become an arrogant "star". It ends with his reconciliation with Horner.
Dirk's rise and fall serves as a way to explore a number of characters and the fashions and foibles of the late 1970s and early 1980s. All the characters experience a variety of highs and lows as the plot intertwines the stories of the characters Jack, Amber, Buck, Rollergirl, and Dirk.
Jack discovers a young Eddie Adams working in a nightclub and shortly after recruits him into the industry. Eddie adopts the moniker Dirk Diggler and quickly becomes a porn celebrity, winning several adult film awards and spending his earnings on clothes, shoes, a new apartment, and his most prized possession, a "competition orange" Corvette.
In a lengthy sequence, the film moves from one character to another showing the audience their attempts and failures to make lives for themselves after they have left Jack's adult film family. Jack himself becomes rather redundant in his porno empire after his main source of funding, the Colonel James, is imprisoned (the reason is unclear, though possession of kiddie porn is a logical inference), and his new source of funding insists upon shooting on the lower-cost videotape and using amateur actors. Jack dislikes the lower-quality videotape format and becomes bored with the films that are now being produced without the effort of script, character development, or direction. Jack tries a new angle to revitalize his career, employing Rollergirl to ride around with him in a limousine enticing random strangers to have sex with her on film. The ploy goes very badly when the man they choose at random knows Rollergirl from high school and insults her. She and Jack beat him severely and leave him bleeding on the street.
Amber finds herself in a nasty custody battle with her former husband over their child. The court determines that she is unfit to be a mother.
