 Arndt won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for "Little Miss Sunshine" and was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for "Toy Story 3".This made Arndt the first screenwriter ever to be nominated for both the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay for his first two screenplays.He has also been credited under the pseudonyms Michael deBruyn and Rick Kerb, which are mainly used for script revisions.