Home Alone (1990)

Eight-year-old Kevin McCallister is left behind when his family flies off for Christmas, and the last half hour is a gleeful demolition derby as two burglars walk into his booby-trapped house. The paint cans, the tarantula and the iron down the laundry chute still get gasps and laughs from children who have never seen it. Macaulay Culkin carries it with impeccable comic timing. The family pick that grown-ups also enjoy, and the sequel, Lost in New York, repeats the formula in a Manhattan hotel if one night is not enough.