Reception (Home Alone)

Home Alone received mixed reviews from film critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a "Rotten" score of 54%, based on 41 reviews, with an average rating of 5.2/10  At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, it has a rating score of 63, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a 2 1/2 out of 4-star rating. He criticized the plot as "so implausible that it makes it hard for [him] to really care about the plight of the kid [Kevin]." He praised Culkin's performance and compared the elaborate booby-traps in the film to Rube Goldberg.Although Caryn James of The New York Times complained that the film's first half is "flat and unsurprising as its cute little premise suggests", she praised the second half for its slapstick humor. She also praised the conversation between Kevin and Marley, as well as the film's final scenes. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "D" grade, criticizing the film for its "sadistic festival of adult-bashing". Gleiberman said that "[John] Hughes is pulling our strings as though he'd never learn to do anything else." Variety praised the film for its cast. Jeanne Cooper of The Washington Post praised the film for its comedic approach.Hal Hinson, also of The Washington Post, praised Chris Columbus's direction and Culkin's acting.

The film received an Academy Award for Best Original Score nomination written by John Williams.^{[citation needed]}

American Film Institute Lists

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs - Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:
• Harry Lime & Marv Merchants - Nominated Villains