Top 100 Movies Of The 1990's: #70 Home Alone

Chris Klemmer2/17/2023 7:00 PM

Box Office: $285.7 Million

Oscar Nominations: Best Score, Best Original Song

Oscar Wins: None

MovieRankings.Net: 91/100

Available To Stream: Disney+

Macaulay Culkin might be the best child actor ever. His peak was very short but there was a brief time when he was a bankable A-list movie star along with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Cruise. But by 1994, he was starring in box office bombs like The Pagemaster and Getting Even With Dad and the run was over. I wonder if he looks at his brother Kieran and is jealous at all. Kieran (who was Fuller in this) now is starring in Sucession, hosting SNL and had a much more natural progression to his career. It couldn't have been very easy being Macauley Culkin.

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Haley Joel Osment gives the best performance by a kid in a movie in The Sixth Sense. I'd put Danny Lloyd from The Shining right there with him. Though from a degree of difficulty, it be Culkin in Home Alone. He has to carry a comedy all by himself and he's alone in half of the scenes. Other child actors typically have someone to play off of. Not only that, but in many ways comedy is harder than being terrified in a horror movie. Most kids trying to be funny in movies are obnoxious. Culkin is someone you root for in the entire movie.

I wrote about my favorite scene in Home Alone in the blog below. It's the "Keep the change, ya filthy animal!" stuff. I also discuss John Hughes (who wrote Home Alone) as well:

Home Alone was a massive hit that no one saw coming. Everyone thought that November/December in 1990 could have some big hits but they would be movies like Rocky V, The Godfather III, Dance With Wolves or Kindergarten Cop. Some of those movies did well but Home Alone beat them all every single week. Home Alone was number one in the box office every single weekend from November 16 until February 3rd. That's 12 straight weekends. It was in the Top 10 until the end of April.

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Even though it's called Home Alone, it really does have a fantastic supporting cast. You have Joe Pesci (who won an Oscar that same year for Goodfellas), Daniel Stern, John Candy, John Heard and a really great performance by Catherine O'Hara. It can't be easy playing a mom who abandoned her kid that we root for and care about. If she didn't act with so much kindness and be so funny, that could have really hurt the movie. Because of O'Hara, we never want Kevin to actually be home alone.

Some of the Wet Bandits stuff can be a little too goofy but the older I get, the less it annoys me. I can see what an achievement Home Alone really is. It's a Christmas movie the entire family can watch every year and all be entertained by. That's not easy to do. My favorite Christmas movie is It's A Wonderful Life but 50 years will anyone still care about that movie? I hope so but I doubt it. I am guessing the "old" movie people watch in 2073 will instead be Home Alone.

70. Home Alone

71. Jerry Maguire

72. Titanic

73. Billy Madison

74. Apollo 13

75. Braveheart

76. Edward Scissorhands

77. Cape Fear

78. The River Wild

79. What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

80. 12 Monkeys

81. Stir Of Echoes