PTA: Boogie Nights
Opens September 20, 2025
The Modern Mastery of Paul Thomas Anderson
The rise and fall of a prodigiously-endowed performer on the '70s porno scene. Paul Thomas Anderson's flamboyant 1997 calling card movie revels in the wild success of xxxcess, before crashing to earth with a bump.
Tickets
Select showtime for pricing, tickets, and reserved seating selection (see floor plan).
Saturday, September 20, 2025
Tuesday, September 23, 2025
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.
- Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
- Principal Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Luis Guzmán, Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore, Don Cheadle, John C. Reilly, Heather Graham, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alfred Molina
- Country: USA
- Year: 1997
- Running Time: 155 min.
- Producer: Paul Thomas Anderson, Lloyd Levin, John Lyons, Joanne Sellar
- Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson
- Cinematographers: Robert Elswit
- Editors: Dylan Tichenor
- Music: Michael Penn
- Filmography: Hard Eight (1996)
- Language: English
- Rating: R
- US Distributor: Warner Brothers