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Film 908: Moneyball

Trivia: When Steven Soderbergh was still supposed to direct, he cast Brad Pitt and Demetri Martin in the lead roles and had already shot interview scenes with baseball players Lenny Dykstra, Mookie Wilson and Darryl Strawberry to be included in the film.

Despite suggestions in the movie that Scott Hatteberg was a bad-fielding first baseman, he ended the year with a fielding percentage (.994) higher than the league average for his position (.993).

Bill James, noted as the statistical influence for the main characters' analysis, is regarded by many to be the father of sabermetrics. This study of advanced baseball statistics is named after the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), an organization to which James and other sabermetrics pioneers belong. The film puts a heavy emphasis upon on-base percentage (OBP), though concepts like on-base-plus-slugging-percentage (OPS), now a widely-accepted measure of a player's hitting ability, are not mentioned. Concepts like runs created (RBIs plus runs scored), ERA+ and others widely used by statisticians are also not mentioned, perhaps owing to their increased acceptance in the years since the events portrayed in the film.

The Oakland A's set the new American League record for consecutive wins, with 20. The all-time Major League record is 26, set by the New York Giants in 1916, including one tie. Without ties, the record belongs to the 1935 Chicago Cubs (21 straight wins).

First baseball movie to be nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award (Oscar) since Field of Dreams twenty-two years earlier.

Cameo: Spike Jonze:  as Alán, the socially awkward partner to Billy Beane's (Brad Pitt's) ex-wife in the film.