Oscar bait make it eligible for the awards. However, it was not nominated for any. Second and third were "", the 2003 Best Picture winner, and "The People vs. Larry Flynt", released in 1996. At the low end, as the movie in that period which least qualified as Oscar bait, was the 2006 remake of "When a Stranger Calls", which indeed was not nominated for any Oscars. It was followed by 2009's "Hotel for Dogs" and "", from 2004. Rossman and Schilke used their data to develop an algorithm that could predict how many Oscar nominations a film would get, based on
Oscar bait play and that neither of its stars had ever been nominated for an Academy Award before, whereas "The Wrestler" had several aspects often associated with Oscar bait: a sports movie with a character making a last-chance comeback, played by an actor making a comeback who physically transformed himself for the role. "The difference is the presumptive maleness," Harris reiterated. "[It] permanently exempts a director like Darren Aronofsky from charges of making Oscar bait, but consigns Ron Howard to that category for his whole career." "Critics of the phrase Oscar bait might tell you that making movies is already too difficult