1. Who plays Kevin McCallister?
Macaulay Culkin
Culkin was nine and had just made Uncle Buck for the same writer, who had him in mind from the start. The director still auditioned hundreds of other boys before giving in.
2. Who wrote the film?
John Hughes
Hughes got the idea while packing for a family holiday and wondering what would happen if a child were left behind. He wrote the first draft in about nine days and produced the film as well.
3. Who directed it?
Chris Columbus
Columbus had walked off National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation after falling out with Chevy Chase, and Hughes offered him this instead. He went on to direct the first two Harry Potter films.
4. Where's the family going for Christmas?
Paris
To spend the holiday with Uncle Rob, on a flight the whole house oversleeps for because a power cut has reset the alarm clocks. Florida is the destination in the sequel.
5. What do the two burglars call themselves?
The Wet Bandits
Marv's idea, with a signature of leaving the taps running in every house they rob, which is how the police eventually tie them to the burglaries. In the sequel he renames them the Sticky Bandits.
6. Who plays Harry and Marv?
Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern
Pesci made the film the same year as Goodfellas and had to be asked to stop swearing on set; he settled for 'fridge' as his all-purpose curse. Stern's scream when the tarantula lands on his face is real, even if the spider wasn't biting.
7. What's the fake gangster film Kevin watches?
Angels with Filthy Souls
Shot for the movie in a single day as a parody of the 1938 film Angels with Dirty Faces, with Ralph Foody as Johnny. Generations of viewers have searched for the full film; it doesn't exist.
8. What does Kevin order for himself on his first night alone?
A cheese pizza
'A lovely cheese pizza, just for me,' after a week of fighting his family for a slice. He pays the delivery boy through the letterbox, with the gangster film doing the talking.
9. In which town is the McCallister house?
Winnetka, Illinois
A real house on Lincoln Avenue, in the Chicago suburbs where John Hughes set most of his films. It sold in 2024 for more than five million dollars, with the staircase intact.
10. Who helps Kevin's mother get home from the airport?
Gus Polinski, the Polka King of the Midwest
John Candy, in a cameo filmed in one long day, as the leader of a polka band with a van. His story about once leaving his own son at a funeral parlour was improvised.
11. What does Kevin slap onto his face before the scream?
Aftershave
Culkin was told to take his hands away after the scream; he kept them on his cheeks, and the image became the poster. The routine is copied from his father's.
12. Which neighbour is the subject of Buzz's scary story?
Old Man Marley, the 'South Bend Shovel Slayer'
Roberts Blossom plays the old man who salts the pavements and, Buzz claims, murdered his family with a shovel. Kevin learns the truth in church on Christmas Eve, and the two become friends.
13. Who composed the score?
John Williams
Williams wrote 'Somewhere in My Memory' with the lyricist Leslie Bricusse, and both the score and the song were nominated for Oscars. Hughes had asked Bruce Broughton first, who had to drop out.
14. What brands an 'M' onto Harry's hand?
The red-hot front doorknob
Kevin heats it with a charcoal lighter from the inside. The paint cans, the tar and the blowtorch all come later in the same evening.
15. How long did the film stay at number one in America?
Twelve weeks
It opened in November 1990 and was still number one in February. For nearly two decades it was the highest-grossing live-action comedy ever made.
