Critic Reviews

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.

Anderson is young enough to be post-hip and post-ironic, if such terms are possible.

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.

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.

If Boogie Nights were poorly made and acted, its materials would make it intolerably tawdry. But its so well done that we keep watching. [Nov. 10, 1997]

A hard-core movie with a soft, light-hearted center and an edge like a knife.

Mark Wahlberg, in a star-making performance, has the kind of electric ingenuousness that John Travolta did in "Saturday Night Fever."

With its ceaseless music, large canvas, shrewd casting and flawless ensemble acting and the dexterity of its whiplashing mood switches, the movie recalls Robert Altman's "Nashville" more than any subsequent movie has.

A stunning glimpse at acting -- and life -- in the raw.

Has the quality of many great films, in that it always seems alive.