Boogie Nights is a 1997 American period drama film written, directed, and co-produced 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 his fall during the excesses of the 1980s. The film is an expansion of Anderson's mockumentary short film The Dirk Diggler Story (1988), and stars Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds, Don Cheadle, John C. Reilly, William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Heather Graham.

The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Situated to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the city of Los Angeles, as well as several unincorporated areas; and the incorporated cities of Burbank, Calabasas, Glendale, Hidden Hills, and San Fernando. The valley is well known for its film studios such as Warner Bros. Studios and Walt Disney Studios. In addition, it is home to the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park.