"My filmmaking education consisted of finding out what filmmakers I liked were watching, then seeing those films. I learned the technical stuff from books and magazines [...] Film school is a complete con, because the information is there if you want it." Paul Thomas Anderson famously enrolled at New York University’s film school only to drop out two days into the first semester. He hasn’t looked back since, and the above quote, made shortly after the release of 1997’s Boogie Nights, has become a source of motivation for aspiring filmmakers everywhere. It was Boogie Nights that launched Anderson’s career, the writer/director adapting his own 30-minute mockumentary from 1988. Described by Anderson as the first serious film he ever made, The Dirk Diggler Story follows the eponymous male pornstar, played here by Michael Stein, as he navigates the sweaty underbelly of LA’s adult film industry.

• Adam Woodward