Boogie Nights is a 1997 American period comedy-drama[3] film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. It is set in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley and focuses on a young nightclub dishwasher who becomes a popular star of pornographic films, chronicling his rise in the Golden Age of Porn of the 1970s through to his fall during the excesses of the 1980s. The film is an expansion of Anderson's mockumentary short film The Dirk Diggler Story (1988),[4][5][6][7] and stars Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds, Don Cheadle, John C. Reilly, William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Heather Graham. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 1997, and was theatrically released on October 10, 1997, garnering critical acclaim. It was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Original Screenplay for Anderson, Best Supporting Actress for Moore, and Best Supporting Actor for Reynolds. The film's soundtrack also received acclaim.