Pornography, drugs and disco are the driving forces of this potent parable of the partying 1970s from director Paul Thomas Anderson. Spanning the height of the disco era, this Martin Scorsese-influenced rags-to-bitches allegory is a visually stunning and poignant exploration of the adult entertainment industry. Charting the rise, fall and rise again of bus boy-turned-porn star Mark Wahlberg, who has the right credentials to make it big in the business, Anderson's surreal take on the American Dream is as startling as it is highly entertaining. Burt Reynolds was Oscar-nominated for his brilliant turn as sleaze-movie producer Jack Horner, the patriarch of an extended family of life's flotsam and jetsam. Scintillating support is provided by Heather Graham as Rollergirl and Julianne Moore (also Oscar-nominated) as leading lady Amber Waves. The breathtaking opening Steadicam shot is justifiably famous.

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.