Home Alone Turns 36 This Month, and the House Still Gets Pointed Out by Tourists

Illustration: AI-generated with Pollinations (FLUX), free to use

Home Alone opened on November 16, 1990, so it is 36 years old this month. The premise is so simple that it feels like it must have existed for a hundred years. An eight-year-old boy called Kevin McCallister is left behind when his large family rushes to the airport for a Christmas trip to Paris, and he defends the house against two bumbling burglars.

Photo: Kevin Paul, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

John Hughes wrote it, and Chris Columbus directed. Macaulay Culkin, who was nine when it was shot, plays Kevin, and the burglars, Harry and Marv, were played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. Catherine O'Hara plays Kevin's frantic mother, and John Candy appears in a funny cameo as a polka band leader. John Williams wrote the score, including Somewhere in My Dreams.

Illustration: AI-generated with Pollinations (FLUX), free to use

The house is real. It is in Winnetka, Illinois, near Chicago, and fans still visit it every year. The film was made for about $18 million and went on to take around $476 million worldwide, one of the largest sums ever earned by a comedy at that time. It also stayed at the top of the American box office for weeks, which is a rare run for a comedy.

Photo: Chris Devers, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, followed in 1992, and there have been several later versions. I think the first film works because the traps are inventive, but also because it understands the loneliness of being a child at Christmas. The scene with the neighbour, Old Man Marley, is the heart of the film.

Photo: unknown photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

When do you start watching it each year? And which trap is your favourite? I will always say the paint cans on the stairs.