Home Alone (1990) Revisited – Movie Review

Christmas is just around the corner, and that means it’s time to dust off that immortal holiday classic, Home Alone, as part of our ongoing series John Hughes Revisited. Released at Christmas of 1990, Home Alone was a box office juggernaut that catapulted star Macaulay Culkin to the top of the A-list, making him perhaps the biggest child star of all time. It made Chris Columbus, who directed by Hughes’s script, an A-list director as well, with him later launching the Harry Potter universe on the big screen.

Boasting a score by John Williams, and top notch production design, the classy Christmas epic remains a favorite over thirty years later. Often imitated, but never equaled, people just can’t get enough of Culkin’s Kevin demolishing the “Wet Bandits”, bumbling Harry (Joe Pesci) and Mark (Daniel Stern) with his home-made traps. Produced for $18 million, it made $467 million worldwide, and that’s not even counting merchandise, home video, tv and cable reruns and more. It spawn one legit sequel and a bunch of loosely related ones, and just got rebooted this year with the poorly received Home Sweet Home Alone (more on that on tomorrow’s edition of Awfully Good). 

John Hughes Revisited is written, edited and narrated by Matthew Hacunda. Check out some earlier episodes below, and let us know if you think Home Alone holds up in the comments!