• Friday, November 16, 1990

• Country:

  USA

• Language:

  English

• Runtime:

  103 min

1990

It is Christmas Time and the McAllister family is preparing for a vacation in Paris, France. But, the youngest in the family named Kevin got into a scuffle with his older brother Buzz and was sent to his room which is on the third floor of his house.

Then, the next morning, while the rest of the family were in a rush to make it to the airport on time, they completely forgot about Kevin who now has the house all to himself. Being home alone was fun for Kevin, having a pizza all to himself, jumping on his parents' bed and making a mess.

Then, Kevin discovers about 2 burglars, Harry and Marv about to rob his house on Christmas eve. Kevin acts quickly by wiring his own house with makeshift booby traps to stop the burglars and to bring them to justice.

Goofs

• Continuity: Harry protects his burnt hand with a handkerchief when he climbs along the rope towards the tree house, but alternating shots show the tail of the handkerchief either sticking out or not.
• Factual errors: The underside of a Nissan Quest, actually a front-wheel-drive car, appears to have rear-wheel drive.
• Continuity: When Kevin's father calls the Murphy home while Harry and Marv are robbing it, Marv picks the entire phone off of the table. At this point a receiver is visible on the phone. In the next shot of Marv it is gone. If it was in fact supposed to "fall" off, the answering machine would have been cut off anyway.
• Revealing mistakes: As Kevin flies through the air after he sleds down the stairs, you can see the rollers on the bottom of the sled.
• Continuity: The rope that Kevin uses to climb over to his tree house disappears and reappears between shots.
• Revealing mistakes: Obvious stunt double in the long shots of Kevin swinging across to the tree-house.
• Continuity: When Harry grabs the heated doorknob with the "M" engraved on it, he grabs it with his knuckles at 9:00, facing left. After he puts his hand in the snow to cool it, he looks at it and sees the "M" upright on his hand.
• Revealing mistakes: When the McCallisters are leaving in the morning and the neighbor boy is talking to the van driver, he is mouthing the driver's lines.
• Continuity: The planes all change between take off and landing.
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: After Kevin talks to "Santa", Santa gets in his car and grinds the gears. However, his right hand is on the steering wheel, not the gear shift, as the gears grind.

Taglines

• A Family Comedy Without The Family.
• When Kevin's Family Left For Vacation, They Forgot One Minor Detail: Kevin. But Don't Worry... He Cooks. He Cleans. He Kicks Some Butt.

Trivias

• John Candy filmed his part in only 1 day.
• The concept for this movie originated during the filming of a scene in Uncle Buck (1989) in which Macaulay Culkin plays a character who interrogates a would-be-babysitter through a letterbox.
• The movie that Kevin watches on video tape is not a real film, but footage especially created. It was called "Angels With Filthy Souls." Along with other similar era references in the movie, this is a play upon the movie "Angels with Dirty Faces" starring James Cagney.
• The role of Uncle Frank was written for Kelsey Grammer.
• Joe Pesci's character, Harry Lime, is named after Orson Welles's character from the film The Third Man (1949).
• Jeffrey Wiseman who plays the inquisitive neighbor, Mitch Murphy, auditioned for the role of Kevin McCallister.
• Entered into The Guinness Book of World Records as the "Highest Box Office Gross - Comedy", accumulating $533,000,000 internationally.
• The posters and DVD cases for the movie had Culkin with his hands on his face and screaming, based on the famous painting "The Scream" by Edvard Munch.
• The issue of Playboy that Kevin finds in Buzz's room is from July 1989 with Erika Eleniak as Miss July.
• Joe Pesci kept forgetting that he was filming a "family" movie during his characters on-screen outbursts so director Chris Columbus advised him to say "fridge" instead of the "F-word".

Awards

1. Oscar
   Event: Academy Awards, USA
   Result: Nominated
   Category: Best Music, Original Song
   Recipient(s): John Williams
2. Oscar
   Event: Academy Awards, USA
   Result: Nominated
   Category: Best Music, Original Score
   Recipient(s): John Williams
3. American Comedy Award
   Event: American Comedy Awards, USA
   Result: Won
   Category: Funniest Actor in a Motion Picture (Leading Role)
   Recipient(s): Macaulay Culkin
4. Artios
   Event: Casting Society of America, USA
   Result: Won
   Category: Best Casting for Feature Film, Comedy
   Recipient(s): Jane Jenkins
5. CFCA Award
   Event: Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
   Result: Won
   Category: Emerging Actor
   Recipient(s): Macaulay Culkin