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Sideways
Fox Searchlight Pictures

Sideways reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 94 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
6.2 out of 10
based on 42 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 441 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for language, some strong sexual content and nudity

Starring Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen, Sandra Oh, M.C. Gainey, Alysia Reiner, Alex Kalognomos, and Patrick Gallagher

Two old friends setting off on a wine-tasting road trip...only to veer dizzily sideways into a wry, comedic exploration of the crazy vicissitudes of love and friendship, the damnable persistence of loneliness and dreams and the enduring war between Pinot and Cabernet. (Fox Searchlight Pictures)


GENRE(S): Adventure  |  Comedy  |  Drama  
WRITTEN BY: Alexander Payne
Jim Taylor
Rex Pickett (novel)
 
DIRECTED BY: Alexander Payne  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: April 5, 2005 
Video: April 5, 2005 
Theatrical: October 22, 2004 
RUNNING TIME: 123 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

Nominated for Best Picture at the 77th Annual Academy Awards. It also received Oscar nominations for Adapted Screenplay (which Payne and Taylor won) and Director, and supporting actor nominations for Church and Madsen. Named Best Picture (Musical or Comedy) at the 62nd Annual Golden Globe Awards.

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
Hysterically funny yet melancholy comedy.
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100
Newsweek David Ansen
In Sideways, Payne has created four of the most lived-in, indelible characters in recent American movies. This deliciously bittersweet movie makes magic out of the quotidian.
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100
New York Magazine Peter Rainer
Sweetest, funniest, most humane movie I've seen all year.
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100
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
It's an intoxicating feeling when a movie excites and enlivens us like this -- and there's a particular giddiness to be had in thinking about what movies can (but don't often) do for one's soul after imbibing such a fine vintage.
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100
USA Today Mike Clark
This is a building-block movie: Its stand-out excellence becomes apparent only gradually.
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100
New York Post Megan Lehmann
A sublime variation on the buddy road movie, infusing the midlife crises of the two main protagonists with hope and poetry.
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100
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
The best comedy of 2004. In fact, it's so far the best movie of the year.
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100
Time Richard Corliss
Sideways is by far the year's best American movie.
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100
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
A boisterous, brilliant, heart-warming comedy--strikes me as just about perfect.
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100
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Exhilarating, edgy and wryly comic.
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100
Washington Post Desson Thomson
One of the most pleasurable movies of the year.
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100
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Not a masterpiece, but definitely one of the year's most entertaining movies.
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100
Premiere Glenn Kenny
Every performance here is wonderful, and the movie abounds in moments so true as to be cringe-worthy.
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100
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Pure movie bliss.
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100
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Sideways makes you glad about America, about movies, about life.
100
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Exactly written, directed with a surgeon's precision and transcendently acted, Sideways brings emotional reality to a consistently amusing character comedy, making it something to be cherished like the delicate Santa Ynez Valley wines that are the story's vivid backdrop.
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100
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The characters are played not by the first actors you would think of casting, but by actors who will prevent you from ever being able to imagine anyone else in their roles.
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100
Washington Post Teresa Wiltz
There's not a false note here, and the entire supporting cast -- is uniformly excellent.
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100
Boston Globe Ty Burr
It's a performance (Giamatti's) so nuanced and so real in its everyday pain that it doesn't stand a chance of winning an Oscar. But it should.
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100
San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer
Payne's little marvel.
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100
Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
A film that celebrates the intricacies of life in ways both splendid and mundane, revealing it all with unflinching honesty.
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100
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
What makes it the best movie of the year -- is its insight into human behavior.
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100
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
U.S. geography doesn't matter to Payne. He always charts the terrain of the human heart, and he's among the wisest of mapmakers.
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100
Empire Dan Jolin
Brilliantly observed characters are becoming second nature to Payne and Taylor, and the performances here are uniformly terrific. This is wonderful, original stuff.
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91
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Gets under your skin without you quite being able to say when or how. It has the tact to let you draw yourself in to it.
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90
Film Threat Michael Ferraro
Alexander Payne is becoming one of the greatest American directors of modern cinema and again, Sideways is on its way to being one of the best films of the year.
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90
Dallas Observer Melissa Levine
For the most part, Sideways is a great movie--impeccably written, directed and acted--that takes its characters on a journey toward something new.
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90
Variety Todd McCarthy
A beautifully observed, small-scale study of personal foibles, romantic uncertainty and two sides of the sadly predictable male animal.
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90
LA Weekly Kim Morgan
A trenchant American satirist in his previous films, Payne moves in a different direction with Sideways -- one less mordant but just as pointedly observant.
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90
Slate David Edelstein
A warm, ingratiating, and fitfully hilarious epicurean road movie with a steady ache-an ache like a red-wine hangover.
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90
The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Good comedies are rare, but rarer still are those that conflate laughter with intimacy.
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90
Village Voice J. Hoberman
Jack and Miles are male archetypes, as well as the two most fully realized comic creations in recent American movies.
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90
The New York Times Manohla Dargis
Like the film itself, the performance (Giamatti's) is deeply controlled, played with restraint and with microscopic attention to detail.
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90
The New Yorker David Denby
In this role Giamatti gives his bravest, most generously humane performance yet. Women may be repelled, but men will know this man, because, at one time or another, many of us have been this man.
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88
ReelViews James Berardinelli
It's likely that 2004 won't offer a better movie about a mid-life crisis.
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83
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
Wise, entertaining and often very funny.
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80
The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
Payne's directing is alert, warm, patient. He knows that the surface must keep us interested until we go below it, and his confidence holds us.
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80
TV Guide Ethan Alter
This is easily Payne's funniest film to date, yet the comedy never undercuts the difficult emotions with which the characters are dealing.
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78
Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
A smart and delightful romantic comedy, yet in the course of creating his new charmer Alexander Payne has sheared off some of the rambunctious edges that made his previous films, About Schmidt, Election, and Citizen Ruth, such marvelous studies in social parody.
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75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
There's fun to be had in watching these losers drift without a compass.
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70
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Payne's entertaining but familiar comedy lacks the insolence of his "Election" and the freshness of his work with Kathy Bates in "About Schmidt."
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60
Salon.com Charles Taylor
Alexander Payne's new movie, Sideways, makes you feel like you're trapped at dinner with a wiseass who's trying to convince you what a sensitive guy he is.
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What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 6.2 (out of 10) based on 441 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Damir gave it a6:
ha ha the critics gave this a 94? tieing it with lord of the rings the return of the king? yeah right.. this is a good movie, well put together, kinda funny, but its not my style.. and i don't agree with giving it a perfect score. id say its more of a 3/4 film just missing a couple of strong marks to be accountable as a masterpiece. sideways is seriously not that great.. i wouldnt recommend it, but i'm glad i saw it.

Kenny M. gave it a10:
One of the greatest movies of all time. Alexander Payne is a master of his craft. I don't understand why so many people here didn't find it funny...I thought it was hilarious. Anyway, this film kicks ass. Great script, great shooting, great acting, great directing...everything is perfection. Only American Beauty and a select other few films rate above Sideways in my book.

Alec E. gave it a5:
A clear case of hype elevating a movie to a status it doesnt deserve. Nothing special.

Aidan W gave it a0:
The worst part is that merlot sales dropped because of this movie. way to go america!

Prins M. gave it a0:
Awful. Completely unrealistic and not even remotely funny. Did I mention irritating?

Ragnar J. gave it a9:
very clever comedy. You see the hopeless lives of two men, succumbing slowly to their own extinction and aspiring to find a new way to lead their lives. May seem sardonic and obnoxious, at times, but they are portraying realistic emotions and case-studies. Fabulous wit and clever as f*ck.

Susan L. gave it a6:
Rated above "Apocalypse Now"? Come on!

Read more user comments...

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