Sideways

Sideways (2004) is Alexander Payne's wine-country comedy you can watch online on iFILM. Failed novelist Miles drags his old friend Jack on a road trip through California vineyards the week before Jack's wedding.

Miles (Paul Giamatti) knows pinot the way some people know scripture, and he uses it to drown the wreckage of his divorce. Jack (Thomas Haden Church) didn't come to taste anything but one last shot at feeling single. Somewhere between the tasting rooms they meet Maya (Virginia Madsen) and Stephanie (Sandra Oh), and a quiet guys' getaway slides into a week of lies, confessions and choices nobody planned for.

Payne builds a road movie with no chase scenes and no big climax — two middle-aged men, a good bottle of merlot, and long talks about everything that went sideways. The film won the Oscar for Adapted Screenplay and famously dented merlot sales nationwide thanks to a single line of Miles's. Stream Sideways (2004) online on iFILM.