Release Year: 1990

Genre: Comedy, Family

Director: Chris Columbus

Writer: John Hughes

Stars: Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Catherine O'Hara, John Candy

If you've ever spent hours on YouTube watching people fail epically—getting hit in the crotch with a football or crashing a dirt bike into a brick wall—this is the movie for you. Laughing at someone being mashed in the groin is funny everywhere around the world, and Home Alone is the Great Pyramid of Giza of slapstick humor—its final half hour is pure, unadulterated, family-friendly violence.

So. Much. Violence.

After eight-year-old Kevin McCallister is accidentally left home alone during the Christmas season, he has to struggle to survive. This struggle isn't exactly Bear Grylls territory at first…since it involves bingeing on ice cream and stealing a toothbrush. (Dental hygiene is important, y'all.)

But when two burglars get involved, Kevin has to use physical threats to defend his home. In the movie's most famous sequence, Kevin sets booby traps, and gleefully provokes tons of slapstick injuries, from a nail driven into the sole of a burglar's foot (eek) to a blowtorch igniting the crown of another burglar's head (double eek).

So: did America's filmgoers run in fear after watching a movie about an angelic blonde kid unleashing his inner sadist?

Nope. People lurve seeing hilarious injuries…especially when they're being doled out by a fundamentally likeable little kid.

When it came out in 1990, Home Alone proved to be Christmas movie gold. It's got a neat, instantly recognizable childhood fantasy/fear as its underlying concept—a kid is accidentally left at home. (Alone, obviously.)

And who among us didn't have that fantasy as a kiddo?

None of us, obviously: people shelled out the cash, making it (adjusted for inflation) the most successful holiday movie…of all time. Tough break, It's A Wonderful Life. (Source)

John Hughes, the writer of Home Alone, was no stranger to making bank by crafting entertainment suitable for families. He could turn his F-word switch on and off, writing PG movies like Home Alone and R-rated movies like (yup) The Breakfast Club. The dude knew how to churn out screenplays and make money while doing it. He could've had a giant pool of gold coins to dive into (like Scrooge McDuck) if he wanted.

Teaming up with Gremlins writer, now director, Chris Columbus, and burgeoning child star Macaulay Culkin (who currently plays in a rock band exclusively devoted to songs about pizza, Hughes and Co. pleased audiences throughout the world—and laughed at a few skeptical critics (cough cough Roger Ebert cough cough) all the way to the bank.

Home Alone has enshrined itself as an all-time holiday classic—which will undoubtedly be re-shown during the holiday season until the end of recorded history. Set your DVR, grab some cocoa, and…check for booby-traps.

When you think of cinema studies, a few film titles probably spring to mind. Citizen Kane. The Godfather. Taxi Driver.

A movie that probably doesn't pop up on that list is Home Alone. This movie doesn't have fancy-shmancy camera angles. Its script isn't game-changing. It's not masterfully acted (sorry, Macaulay).

But in terms of cultural studies or intellectual history, Home Alone is right up there as a Big Important Film. No, it's not black-and-white and nearly silent. It's not arty in the slightest. But if you want a concrete example of what Americans considered important in 1990, you should take a gander at Home Alone.

Because this family film not only decimated the box office in 1990, it's also the top-grossing holiday movie of. all. time. That's major—if there's one thing that the American public loves more than eating sugar cookies during the holidays (mmm, sugar cookies), it's going to the movie theater as a family. So you better believe that it reflects some serious American values.

So what values does Home Alone reflect, besides the indisputable fact that aftershave burns? Check it:

1. Action In Home Alone: A single eight-year-old child defends the All-American Christmas from the forces of anarchy—using fire. And nails. And a BB gun. And paint cans.

American Value: To quote another John Hughes movie: "You mess with the bull, you get the horns." Kevin is doing the same thing that sheriffs do in small towns in Westerns and that Imperator Furiosa does in Mad Max—protecting what needs to be protected by any means necessary.

And our love for protecting our hearths hasn't diminished since 1990, but it has changed. The fact that Kevin's so violent—and that it's a-okay—places Home Alone as being filmed in a time before Columbine, Sandy Hook and Santa Barbara. School shootings hadn't yet become an epidemic, and so violence in children was seen as something less threatening than it is today.

2. Action In Home Alone: As he defends the American Way from chaos, Kevin goes from being a snotty little brat to being a self-reliant kid, capable of burning and maiming robbers and surviving on his own.

American Value: Bootstraps, y'all. We love a story of a self-made (wo)man. Sly Stallone in Rocky. Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich.

The story of an individual who succeeds against all odds? We can't get enough of that.

But again: in the decades since Home Alone came out, we're culturally less about individuals making it on their own and more about evolving within a group. We're less about Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption (#1 all the way) and more about JLaw in The Hunger Games (teamwork is the best work).

After all, in a world that includes social media (which was sadly lacking in 1990) we're less likely to idolize those who go it alone. They don't call it "loner media."

And there are a bajillion-and-a-half other ways in which Home Alone is a time capsule of late 80s values.

This film's stereotypical worried mom and chill-to-the-point-of-frozen dad?

That speaks volumes.

Its almost complete lack of people of color?

That also speaks volumes.

Its assertion that the perfect diet consists of pizza and mac n' cheese?

Okay, sure: some things are eternal across the ages.