20 essential classic holiday films to watch this year

Home Alone (1990)

If we’re talking about one holiday film you can find on almost any channel, it’s Home Alone. This Macauley Culkin-starring hit would spawn its own direct-to-video franchise, as well as inspire countless kids to dream of the day they could stomp down the halls saying “I’m living alone!”

It’s also a film built for mocking. Case in point? Its story. We follow Kevin McAllister (Culkin), an eight-year-old boy accidentally left alone on Christmas by his (somewhat) selfish and apparently exceedingly wealthy family who can afford to travel to France two days before Christmas. (I’m not bitter, I swear!)

Kevin quickly falls in love with solitude, believing that he’s wished his family away. But when two criminals decide to rob his house, he will have to defend it and hope that his family somehow comes home.

Okay, so Home Alone’s plot has a ton of problems; would you expect anything less from a film written by John Hughes? But it’s still incredibly funny and heartwarming. The heart mostly comes from Catherine O’Hara, who plays Kevin’s mom. Say what you will, but both this and the sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, work solely on how wonderful O’Hara’s performance is. You may think the rest of the McAllisters are trash, but not her. There’s also far too much humor to be mined from watching a small child commit attempted murder on two dudes for 90 minutes.

Stream now on the Starz app.