Sideways is a 2004 comedy-drama film written by Jim Taylor and Alexander Payne and directed by Payne. Adapted from Rex Pickett's 2004 novel of the same name, Sideways follows men in their forties, portrayed by Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church, who take a week-long road trip to Santa Barbara County Wine Country. Payne and Taylor won multiple awards for their screenplay. Giamatti and Church, as well as actresses Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh, playing local women who become romantically involved with the men, all received accolades for their performances.

Sideways won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and was nominated for four other awards.

Miles Raymond (Paul Giamatti) is an unsuccessful writer, a wine-aficionado, and a depressed middle school English teacher living in San Diego, who takes his soon-to-be-married actor friend and college roommate, Jack Cole (Thomas Haden Church), on a road trip through Santa Ynez Valley wine country. Miles wants to relax and live well. However, Jack wants one last sexual fling.

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects. The process of filmmaking has developed into an art form and industry.

Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them. Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment and a powerful method for educating – or indoctrinating – citizens. The visual elements of cinema give motion pictures a universal power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions by using dubbing or subtitles that translate the dialogue into the language of the viewer.

Films are made up of a series of individual images called frames. When these images are shown rapidly in succession, a viewer has the illusion that motion is occurring. The viewer cannot see the flickering between frames due to an effect known as persistence of vision, whereby the eye retains a visual image for a fraction of a second after the source has been removed. Viewers perceive motion due to a psychological effect called beta movement.

Rex Pickett (born July 9, 1956) is an American writer best known for his popular novel Sideways. Before publishing the book, he worked as a screenwriter and director in film.

Pickett graduated summa cum laude from the University of California in San Diego. After a brief stint at the University of Southern California graduate film school, he left and, with his then wife Barbara Schock, wrote, directed and edited two independent feature films: California Without End ($60K budget) and From Hollywood to Deadwood ($650K budget). The former was sold to Bavarian Radio Television in Germany and the latter was bought and theatrically released by Island Pictures.

Pickett then returned to writing, optioning original scripts, adapting novels and doing rewrites for hire. A short he wrote, My Mother Dreams the Satan's Disciples in New York, was directed by Schock as her American Film Institute thesis project. The film was awarded the 2000 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short.