Home Alone Resources

If you want a load of data—cast lists and technical specs—to bury you, this is the place to go. If you want the smooth, brilliant synthesis of data into subtle and refined writing, we're just saying there are other websites (cough Shmoop cough).

This is a fascinating one—mainly because of how negative it is. When Home Alone came out, audiences loved it and critics hated it: it only has a measly 55% positive rating. How is this possible? Suffice it to say, the movie's endured the test of time.

Yet another website to go to, if you're in the mood for feeling baffled. Hard to believe critics dumped on Home Alone like this.

This site is for hardcore Home Alone fans who like taking quizzes on the what the worst Home Alone sequel is (Home Alone 4 apparently).

If you're ever in the greater Chicago area, you can drive around and check out the places where they filmed Home Alone…unless you want to, like, climb the Sears Tower or eat some deep dish or spend your time in a more logical way.

This sequel repeated the success of the first movie and is pretty similar (most of the actors from the original are back), except it's in New York and substitutes the Plaza Hotel instead of the McCallister home. It also replaces the snow-shovel guy with a kindly homeless lady who loves feeding pigeons.

Didn't bring Macaulay Culkin back into the mix—instead, there's some new kid, who's trying to prevent thieves from stealing a microchip implanted in his toy car, and use it to help North Korean terrorists or something. John Hughes wrote the script, but it got lousy reviews.

This violated the airwaves back in 2002. Kevin grapples with a world in which his parents have been divorced, but it doesn't involve the original Macaulay Culkin cast, obviously. People hated it and it subsided into oblivion.

This is more of the same stuff—kids alone at home, burglars—crammed into a different bag: a direct-to-TV bag.

In the first part of this Super Nintendo game, you run around the house planting booby traps for the burglars. You have to complete it in a time limit, before snapping the traps on the burglars and letting the bodies hit the floor.

Kevin runs wild in this video game adaptation of the sequel: you have to run around the hotel dodging bellhops, and into the sewers fighting pigeons. Finally, you lead Harry and Marv through another maze of pain.

This was randomly released in Europe years after the original Home Alone movie came out.

Columbus discusses his love of Christmas, and his fear of watching the movie's stunt men die or get horribly injured…

This critical naysayer claims that Home Alone transformed John Hughes from a sensitive chronicler of adolescence into a commercial sell-out.

This is seriously thought-provoking stuff. By the time your finished reading, you'll be convinced that Kevin grew up to become the serial killer from the Saw horror franchise.

Roger Ebert was a hater-in-chief when Home Alone came out. He didn't like the part with the booby traps—the movie's most famous sequence!

Buzz is still buzzin'. Here, he explains what it was like to be Buzz, and talks about meeting Michael Jackson on the set of Home Alone 2.

Cinematographers and production designers don't get enough cred. Here John Muto, the designer, and Julio Macat, the cinematographer, explain how they shot the finale, rigging up the set and getting specific shots.

The internet loves lists, and people love Home Alone. Put the two together and you get… a long internet list about Home Alone.

This parodies the famous No Country for Old Men author's style, giving Home Alone the flavor of an ultra-violent Southwestern epic.

This trailer does a good job of explaining what the movie's about: a kid left at home, burglars, booby traps—the timeless simplicity of the plot.

Macaulay Culkin delivers his famous scream, looking like aftershave has delivered him into a state of existential dread.

If seeing someone step on a nail makes you queasy, confront your fears and watch this. We also see Harry burn his hand.

Kevin dishes out the pain and then rhetorically asks the burglars if they want more. They're too thick to turn down the offer.

Kevin orders a pizza with malicious zeal, stiffing the pizza boy on a tip in the process.

Conducted by a Polish interviewer, this reveals that Home Alone is huge in Poland. And, oh—Chris Columbus explains what the movie means to him ("It's a love letter to Christmas") and how he made it.

This satirical video ends up going off in a crazy direction, becoming a kind of fake NRA ad for protecting children with guns.

Macaulay Culkin describes how he got into the biz of child acting, as he eats a sandwich. He also explains that he actually did the stunt where he slides on his knees on the ice.

From the guy who did the classic Star Wars, Jaws, and Indiana Jones soundtracks. This really buries itself in your mind.

This encompasses both the eerie, mischievous part of the theme and the sentimental, touching "Somewhere in My Memory" part.

John Williams brings you that live version you know you always wanted but never thought to ask for until just now.

This version of the Oscar nominated theme is accompanied by pictures of Quebec City in winter, for some reason.

This captures Kevin's famous scream, along with giving you a sense of the plot—kid left alone at home, fending off burglars.

The poster for the sequel is similar to the first poster, except this time the Statue of Liberty is imitating Kevin's famous scream.

This is Kevin's battle plan for the booby traps—it doesn't look that complicated, but it evidently is.

Culkin made his mark as this iconic eight-year-old burglar-beater. He later on went to play in a pizza-themed indie band.

In this picture, Pesci sports Harry's trademark gold tooth, which glitters.

Stern is in the throes of acting, here—he screams as a tarantula crawls across his face, and you can also see the mark from where the clothing iron hit him.

Here's Catherine O'Hara as Kevin's mom, looking desperate at the airport.

Blossom looks intense here—belying Marley's heart of gold.

Candy radiates humanity, concern, and joviality as kindly polka bandleader Gus Polinski.

Ratray perfectly conveys Buzz's vibe as a malicious older brother.

This house is still in the Chicago area if you want to go stare at it for a few minutes for some reason.

In this gif, Harry's head is getting permanently blow-torched.

Marv is suddenly realizing what he's gotten himself into, as Kevin levels a BB gun between his eyes.

Before Kevin gets into it with the burglars, the biggest thing he has to worry about is this furnace, which turns into a monster in his mind.

This points out how, with a certain difference, the plot of Home Alone might've seemed more brutal than funny.