Boogie Nights is a film chronicling the rise and decline of porn industry icon Eddie Adams, more popularly known as his on-screen persona, Dirk Diggler. The film opens up in 1977 in a rough-and-tumble section of Torrance, California. The audience is introduced to a young Eddie Adams, a high school dropout working in a sleazy nightclub in Reseda.
He lives with his verbally abusive mother and an indifferent stepfather. His dead-end life is turned around when he meets Jack Horner, a porn filmmaker. He invites Eddie to audition for a performing role in his movies by observing him as he has sex with a porn ingénue, Rollergirl, who earned her name for the roller skates she always wears. Eddie’s estranged relationship with his parents takes a turn for the worst following a heated argument with his mother about his lay about lifestyle and promiscuity.
He leaves home to move in with Jack where he is given the screen name Dirk Diggler. His natural charisma, youthful vigor, good looks, and extraordinarily large penis propel him to stardom within the world of pornographic movies. His fame affords him luxuries he had never experienced before: a large, beautifully furnished house, a wardrobe full of the latest, most fashionable clothes, and a Corvette Stingray---a car he had been obsessing over for the longest time.
Eddie---now going by his pseudonym Dirk---along with a colleague in the porn industry, Reed Rothchild, launch a succession of themed porn flicks, mostly knock-offs of popular action films, pushing their careers into greater heights. Set in the 70’s Dirk and the rest of his friends in the porn industry live it up like rock stars, indulging in all the sex, drugs, and decadence that their money can buy. In the 1980’s though things take a turn for the worse. It is the New Year’s Eve and Jack Horner is hosting a wild party at his house.
His assistant director Bill Thompson finds his wife, also a porn actress, having sex with another man in the party. She tries to justify her actions but Bill shoots them both in a fit of mad rage. Afterwards, grief stricken at having realized what he’d done shoots himself. His suicide creates a huge scandal not just for Jack Horner but also for the entire porn industry.
Eventually the drug use gets the better of Dirk and Reed affecting their ability to perform sexually during filming. Dirk also begins to experience behavioral changes, becoming highly irritable and violent making it increasingly difficult to work with him. In response Jack recruits a new leading man for his films, Johnny Doe.
This pushes Dirk over the edge and he confronts Jack, resulting in a bitter, heated argument, which in turn gets Dirk fired. Reed and Dirk then decide to leave the world of porn to pursue a career in music as rock performers. They take with them a boom mike operator named Scotty, an openly gay man in love with Dirk. While struggling in their music career Floyd Gondolli, a wealthy businessman who owns theaters in San Diego and San Francisco, approaches Jack Horner to convince him to shoot his films directly unto a videotape format in order to minimize production costs.
Jack refuses to partner with Gondolli, believing that shooting on videotape will reduce the worth of his films. Jack eventually agrees to work with Gondolli, albeit reluctantly, as his primary financial backer “Colonel” James, is incarcerated for owning several footages of child pornography. Many of the collaborations between Gondolli and Jack though fail to give them the financial returns they so desperately need.
One of these tie-up projects ends in tragedy though, marking the eventual decline of Jack Horner’s career---also marking the eventual end of the so-called “golden age of porn.” The said project involves Jack and Rollergirl cruising around in a limousine in search of passerby’s on the street whom they proposition to have sex with Rollergirl if they agree to be filmed. One of these random men turns out to Rollergirl’s former classmate who proceeds to berate and verbally abuse her. Jack and Rollergirl retaliate by brutally attacking the man, seriously injuring him and leaving him wounded on the sidewalk as they make their escape.
Rollergirl and Jack aren’t the only ones in trouble as other members of their porn-film troupe are also suffering from personal woes: Dirk and Reed fall deeper into drugs and are soon broke and unable to pay for the demo tapes they need to become music stars. Porn couple Buck Swope and Jessie St. Vincent cannot integrate themselves into civilian life having been denied a bank loan that would enable him to start a business. Matters are worsened for the pair as Amber also finds out that she is now pregnant. Fellow porn star, Amber Waves, looses a custody battle for her child, the court ruling that she is unfit to be a parent because of her participation in pornographic films.
Dirk and Reed eventually hit rock bottom, and Dirk hires himself out as a prostitute but ends up getting mugged by three armed assailants. Deciding that peddling themselves is too dangerous they resort to dealing in cocaine. The pair, joined by another friend Todd, try unwisely to dupe Rahad Jackson, a notorious drug dealer who they partner with. They attempt to sell Rahad 500 grams of baking soda they try to pass off as pure cocaine. The scam fails and Todd is shot in the ensuing scuffle. Dirk escapes and reunites with Jack with the desire to revive his porn career.
The film ends in the year 1984 where things start to look rosy again for Jack Horner’s troupe---Dirk's career seemingly revived as he and Amber prepare to start shooting another porn feature.
