Home Alone is one of the most famous and beloved Christmas movies of all time. Whether fans love or hate Kevin McAllister, he is one of the most recognizable names and faces in holiday media. However, many fans that have watched Home Alone time and time again over the festive period will be unfamiliar with some sequels.
Home Alone 2 remains a well-known commodity to many fans, partly because of the Donald Trump cameo, but while Macauley Culkin left the franchise behind at that point there were plenty of other Home Alone franchise films. With the release of Home Sweet Home Alone in 2021, the franchise now numbers six total films.
6 Home Alone 4
It may be difficult to imagine Home Alone without Macauley Culkin for many fans, but it is even stranger for them to imagine the character of Kevin McAllister without Culkin embodying the role. Kevin and his family returned without most of the original actors in the fourth entry in the franchise, and a story that will seem bizarre to most fans of the franchise.
Kevin’s mother and father have divorced, and his father is now living in a high-tech futuristic house with his new love interest. While trying to get his family back together, Kevin stays with his father and tries to protect a royal heir from his old nemesis Marv, as well as Marv’s wife and mother. This made-for-TV entry in the franchise has few redeeming qualities and even fewer returning actors, making it one worth missing for all but the most die-hard fans.
5 Home Sweet Home Alone
The new Disney Plus revival of the franchise featured a new character, Max Mercer, defending his home against a married couple who mistakenly try and break into his house to look for a deformed doll that could pay for their debts. Not only was this reviled upon release in 2021 by fans and critics alike, but it was also a confusing entry that focused more on the “villains” than the main character.
While Archie Yates has put on impressive performances in films like Jojo Rabbit, his character Max Mercer was hated by fans for being needlessly cruel. The fact that there were no villains and the entire house-breaking situation came about as a result of a misunderstanding led to the film being cruelly treated by fans of the franchise. Even featuring security systems designed by Kevin McAllister and bringing back his brother Buzz for a cameo couldn’t help Disney with landing success in this one.
4 Home Alone: The Holiday Heist
Another made-for-TV entry in the series, The Holiday Heist featured the original character Finn Baxter trying to stop three thieves from robbing his house of a famous painting that the family unknowingly had hidden in their basement. Even Malcolm McDowell as the leader of the thieves and Ed Asner in a cameo role couldn’t help the film find success among franchise fans.
While The Holiday Heist wasn’t as bad as some other entries, it was considered an overly campy entry that didn’t have a strong enough script to live up to scrutiny. The story about a hidden vault in the family basement seemed far too convoluted even for Home Alone fans and the film was quickly forgotten about.
3 Home Alone 3
The last entry in the franchise to receive a theatrical release, Home Alone 3 lost franchise star Macauley Culkin, as well as director Chris Columbus and composer John Williams. John Hughes still wrote and produced the film, which starred Alex D Linz as Alex Pruitt, an 8-year-old that tries to defend his home from a gang of international criminals that steal an incredibly valuable microchip from Silicon Valley.
While this entry featured another especially convoluted plot and an early Scarlett Johansson appearance as Alex’s older sister, it was watchable if not on the level of the original two entries in the franchise. The film may not have the trademarks fans want from the franchise, but it is a recognizable piece of fun that fans of the first two films probably won’t regard too poorly.
2 Home Alone
The original classic is considered by many to be one of the best Christmas films out there. Starring Macauley Culkin as Kevin McAllister, Home Alone tells the story of a young boy that protects his house against a pair of robbers when his family accidentally leaves him at home alone for Christmas. From the strange John Goodman appearance to the classic set of traps, it is incredibly hard to disregard the charm of this film.
Home Alone brings everything that fans love about the franchise and so many of the sequels would miss out on in buckets. Culkin’s cheeky, confident young character proved an able foil to Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci as the Wet Bandits, who became a famous duo in their own right as the hilarious thieves.
1 Home Alone 2
However, in a rare case for beloved films such as Home Alone, the sequel exceeded and surpassed the original. Still starring Culkin, Stern and Pesci, Lost In New York pitted Kevin against the Wet Bandits in New York City. The change of location, additions like Tim Curry to the cast, and delightfully wholesome subplots featuring the bird lady and toy store owner Mr. Duncan, are all factors contributing to this film outpacing the original.
But even more than these are the simple audacity of the pranks that Kevin pulls against the Bandits in the grand finale when he decides to take the fight to them before luring them into an abandoned house. The setting meant Kevin could trash the place even more than he did his own house in the original, and the hilarity of the ways he demolished the villainous duo went to even grander, more ridiculously fun heights than those of the first film.