Home Alone Details

This modest Christmas comedy became a phenomenal money-making machine, one of the highest grossing pictures of all time. Writer/producer John Hughes and director Chris Columbus tuned in to two key elements: the fantasy of Steven Spielberg's ET, with its children triumphing over adult adversity, and the perennial chase of Tom and Jerry cartoons. Thus Macaulay Culkin, then ten years old and already in his fifth picture, is the youngster left stranded by his parents who fly to Paris for the holiday. He pigs out on junk food, watches videos and then copes heroically with two burglars (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern), crying “Yes!” when he zaps them. Surprisingly violent in a cartoon-like way, it's a celebration of enterprise that captured the heart and wickedness of every child on the planet.

Swinging uneasily between heavy-handed slapstick and sentimental domestic comedy, this unpretentious movie was, inexplicably, the biggest box-office success of 1990.