Macaulay Culkin’s Home Alone Turns 35: Revisit the Holiday Classic

It’s been 35 years since Macaulay Culkin’s anarchy single-handedly saved his ridiculously lavish suburban Chicago home from the mischievous Wet Bandit duo — and Home Alone has cemented itself as a must-watch holiday staple ever since.

Hitting theaters on Nov. 16, 1990, Home Alone turned a then 10-year-old Culkin into a holiday icon. As Kevin McCallister, accidentally ditched by his family at Christmas, he’s left to fend off two bumbling burglars with cartoon-caliber brilliance. (A booby trap of broken tree ornaments? Genius!) Decades later, the Chris Columbus-directed “family comedy without the family” (as it was billed) still airs on repeat every winter.

“I think it helps fill that holiday movie hold that is calling back to Miracle on 34th Street or March of the Wooden Soldiers,” Michael C. Maronna, a.k.a. Kevin’s older brother Jeff, exclusively tells Us Weekly while looking back on the holiday classic. “Maybe those things you watch as a family that helps parents, in that way, get their kids’ hopes up for some sort of excellent ninja, defend-my-house holiday [experience].”

Keep scrolling to take a look back at the legacy of Home Alone, with new exclusive behind the scenes details and more:

WHO WAS INVOLVED?

A pitch-perfect ensemble: Culkin starred as the enterprising Kevin, with Catherine O’Hara and John Heard as his frazzled parents and Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern as Harry and Marv, the slapstick “Wet Bandits.”

The extended McCallister kid crew — 11 in total — included Macaulay’s little brother Kieran Culkin and Maronna, who remembers the set’s frenetic energy: “I don’t think you can have fun without chaos,” he says. “I think we were a good spread of ages and a lot of us were distant hires … We kind of had that, ‘New Yorkers soldiering on in the Illinois winter’ about us. It was great. It was good.”

John Candy even popped in for a memorable cameo as Gus Polinski, “Polka King of the Midwest.”

WHY WE REMEMBER IT

As Maronna puts it, Home Alone contains a sense of “rebellion” blended with a “mother’s tender love,” culminating in the perfect balance of childhood and heart. Add in that laugh-out-loud “cartoony violence,” and it’s lightning in a bottle.

As for the frenetic “energy” of the ensemble scenes fans enjoy so much, Maronna says there were real-life factors that helped the extensive McAllister family come alive so vividly.

“John Heard was going through a divorce, my parents were going through a divorce. [Everyone] knows about the Culkin family already. Just the rebellion of different generations is a big part of the energy of the plot of the film as well,” he says. “It’s like this, ‘I don’t need you. I’m living alone’ [feeling].”

He points out that the brief but memorable Candy cameo also helps take Home Alone to the next level. “You couldn’t improve an ‘80s film more by adding anybody besides John Candy,” he says.

KEY DETAILS

Columbus and writer/producer John Hughes thrived on spontaneity and encouraged improv. Maronna recalls feeling “very free” on set “as someone who was working on that level for the first time.” Macaulay has said he improvised “a lot” of Kevin’s lines, including the famous grocery store scene, and most of O’Hara and Candy’s work was also off the cuff.

“We’d start a ridiculous conversation and go as far as we could,” she recalled to E! News in 2015. “Chris told me later we couldn’t use most of it.”

THE AFTERMATH

Home Alone was a global sensation, taking in more than $476 million at the box office, a level of success that changed many of the actors’ lives forever. On sudden fame, Maronna quips: “When I ended up getting bullied — that was when I knew I had made it. A big tough kid picked me up by the shirt, like an ’80s movie. He was like, ‘Want to know where they’re gonna film Home Alone 2 so I can do my graffiti tags, and they’ll see it on the set!’ I have no idea where he is now.”

After 1992’s Home Alone 2: Lost in New York reunited the cast — delivering a nearly as beloved follow up — more sequels followed with new characters, but none captured the original’s magic. At least Macaulay reprised his role for a funny Home Alone–themed Google Assistant spot — 2018’s most popular holiday commercial!

A NEW PERSPECTIVE

Every stunt was completely practical — no CGI — which is partly why Home Alone hits differently even today. Columbus told the Today show in 2020 that he thought the stuntmen, who were asked to flip down stairs, fall from ceilings and slam into brick walls, were dead multiple times during the two films, calling it “terrifying to watch.” (Columbus confirmed that nobody “ever got hurt” on set, despite his high anxieties.)

Stern, meanwhile, got a bloody nose from the doggy door. And the infamous tarantula moment? All too real: “Everyone seemed cool with it, so I just had them put the friggin’ tarantula on my face!” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2015.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? 

Macaulay was honored with a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 2023, while brother Kieran is an Emmy, Golden Globe and Oscar winner. O’Hara had a recent beloved run on Schitt’s Creek. Maronna, after finding success as Big Pete on Nickelodeon’s The Adventures of Pete & Pete from 1989 to 1996, pivoted to working behind the camera as an on-set electrician. He’s currently rigging electric on the Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, a new Tracy Morgan show set to hit NBC sometime in the near future.

I’ve been working as an electrician for a long time, and then I went into rigging, which is getting things set up,” Maronna tells Us, sharing that he first became interested in behind the scenes work on the Pete & Pete set. “It’s fun to solve problems.”

Stern, meanwhile, can be found on TV shows like Shrill and For All Mankind. Pesci has largely stepped back from the spotlight, but his legacy, like those of the late Hughes, Candy and Heard, remain untouchable.