54

54 (1998) is Mark Christopher's music drama you can watch online on iFILM. Late-seventies New York, and the most impossible door in nightlife belongs to Studio 54. Shane, a kid from across the river in New Jersey, is standing in the crowd outside when the club's owner plucks him from the sea of faces.

That lucky pull lands Shane (Ryan Phillippe) behind the bar and into the middle of someone else's party — cocaine, casual sex, a famous face every night. Mike Myers plays owner Steve Rubell with a hard, un-comic edge that turns out to be the best thing here. Salma Hayek and Neve Campbell round out a world where the dream of making it slowly shows its price. The film is less about plot than about the feel of disco in its last hours.

Worth knowing: the studio recut the theatrical version heavily, and a later director's cut restored a story many find far more honest. A curious snapshot of the night the music was about to stop. Stream 54 (1998) online on iFILM.