20 HUGE Hit Movies NOBODY Saw Coming

19. Home Alone

Home Alone is such an indelible Christmas movie that it's easy to forget its success was actually a total surprise to Hollywood at the time.

With a modest-ish budget of $18 million and starring a lesser-known child actor in Macaulay Culkin, few were expecting much but a solid performance from the film.

But it became a genuine pop-culture phenomenon, becoming the number-one film at the box office for 12 weeks in a row from November 1990 through to February 1991.

By the end of its run, Home Alone had grossed $476.7 million, making it the highest-grossing live-action comedy of all time until it was finally dethroned by The Hangover Part II 20 years later.

And get this - in 1991, Home Alone became the third-highest-grossing film of all time worldwide, sitting behind only Star Wars and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. 

Its unprecedented success of course led to a hastily-produced sequel, which while not quite reaching the original's highs still raked in a mighty $359 million on a $28 million budget.