Iris writes for the society column at The Daily Telegraph.

At the beginning of the film, the camera pans across her desk, showing scattered marriage announcements and photos.

These are all visible before her job title is actually mentioned during the company holiday party, so eagle-eyed viewers may have already figured it out. 

At the beginning of Amanda and Ethan's argument, she throws two sneakers at him.

Both shoes land behind him in the hallway outside their bedroom.

Throughout the next few shots, the shoes seem to disappear and reappear on the floor behind him. 

Amanda's gardener overhears the conversation between Amanda and Ethan when their argument continues outside.

Amanda asks Ethan to admit to having an affair with his secretary and says she really wants to know the truth. 

Before he answers, the gardener looks at Ethan and shakes his head, presumably to warn Ethan against confessing.

It's hard to miss Lohan's uncredited cameo in "The Holiday" — she appears in Amanda's movie trailer alongside James Franco. But there's a story behind her appearance in the film. 

Nancy Myers, the writer and director of "The Holiday," also created Lohan's first feature film, "The Parent Trap."

In a 2006 interview with ComingSoon.net, Meyer's said, "I know Lindsay because I directed 'The Parent Trap' and I told her she owes me everything so I made her do it."

The director added, "I called her and said, 'You have to do this for me,' but she was sweet about it, she was totally there."

The trailer Amanda works on at the beginning of the film and the one she dreams later on are both narrated by recognizable voice actor Hal Douglas.

Before his death in 2014 at the age of 89, he was well-known for narrating thousands of movie trailers, including those for "Forrest Gump" and "Lethal Weapon."

Amanda and Iris find each other through the house-swapping website HomeExchange.

It's a real company and website that's still running today. It continues to offer the experience shown in the film, where two users agree to stay at each other's homes for a set amount of time.

The site even credits the film for really putting it on the map. x

Amanda brings a big stack of books on her vacation, featuring many popular reads from the late 1990s and early 2000s. 

The pile includes the spiritual book "The Power of Now" (1997), young-adult fiction novel "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" (1997), and Alice Munro's short-story collection "Runaway" (2004).

When Iris first arrives at Amanda's house, she excitedly explores each room.

For most of the tour, her scarf is loosely looped around her neck once.

However, there are a handful of shots where her scarf is instead tied in a double layer around her neck.

Amanda has a massive DVD collection at her house, which isn't surprising seeing as she makes movie trailers for a living. 

Based on various shots, the DVDs seem to be sorted in alphabetical order. When Iris looks more closely at the shelves, she's near the "G" section. 

"Enigma" (2001) can also be spotted on one shelf, which is a bit of a pop-culture paradox since Kate Winslet (who played Iris) starred in the movie.

After excitedly looking through Amanda's impressive DVD collection, Iris settles on "Punch-Drunk Love" (2002).

The choice pretty perfectly coincides with her plot in "The Holiday" as the 2002 rom-com follows an American man who falls for an English woman.

When Iris and Arthur have their meet-cute, he asks her where in England she's from, and she says, Surrey. 

He excitedly responds that Cary Grant was from Surrey, which he knows because the famous actor told him.

However, Grant was actually from Bristol, another English town. 

Arthur explains the concept of a meet-cute — the moment in a rom-com when a couple meets for the first time — to Iris.

He then gives an example of a man and a woman meeting at a store while trying to buy separate halves of the same pajama set.

This exact scenario is the meet-cute in "Bluebeard's Eighth Wife" (1938).

Graham and his daughters, Olivia and Sophie, tell Amanda that they always drink hot cocoa with five marshmallows each.

Whenever the shot shows a clear view of their mugs, there are indeed five marshmallows in each cup.

When Amanda hangs out with Graham and his daughters, Olivia comments that they never have girl visitors at the house.

But their aunt Iris lives nearby, and judging by their reaction to seeing her at the New Year's Eve party at the end of the film, they're fans of hers. 

Just like Amanda's wall of DVD shelves, Graham has a wall of bookcases in his house. This is equally fitting since he works as a book editor. 

His collection seems to include a number of classics — there's a Tennessee Williams collection visible on the same shelf as a Dylan Thomas book.

However, there are also multiple travel guides on the shelves.

While perusing Blockbuster with Iris, Miles picks up a copy of "Driving Miss Daisy" and tells her the iconic score was done by Hans Zimmer.

Zimmer actually composed the score for "The Holiday" as well.

Miles continues pulling multiple movies from the shelves of the video store to comment on the different scores, including "Jaws."

The movie was sorted in the "drama" section, but it's most commonly referred to as an adventure/thriller.

During the video-store scene, when Miles picks up "The Graduate" (1967) and starts singing Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson," the camera flashes down the row to Dustin Hoffman perusing the shelves. 

Hoffman starred as Ben Braddock in the 1967 film, and his cameo in "The Holiday" was actually happenstance. 

In the DVD commentary, Meyers said they were filming at a Blockbuster in the Brentwood neighborhood of LA, and Hoffman was having lunch next door. Meyers knew the actor, so she invited him on set, and he jumped into the scene. 

They didn't even change his clothes or give him any makeup. 

This story was originally published in December 2022 and most recently updated on December 19, 2024.

When the prime minister shows up for his first day of work, some of the people he walks by have ID cards, but others don't.

It appears that anyone visiting him or on his security team has a badge clipped to their top, but the members of his house staff don't.

Although his morality is called into question throughout the film as he's tempted by his assistant, Mia, in his first scene, Harry is introduced as a family man.

In his office, there's a wall of family photos and pictures that seem to have been drawn by his children. 

Daniel and his stepson Sam grow closer throughout the movie, but at the start of the film, Sam hides away in his room.

His bedroom door is decorated with stickers and a chalkboard, which he uses to tell Daniel to leave him alone. But he writes different messages on it later in the film. 

Some of the stickers say "Don't drop anything, you won't find it again" and "If your name's not Sam, you're not getting in."

When Jamie is working on his book outside by the lake, most of the pages that fly away as Aurelia lifts his cup seem to be blank.

There's a handful with words typed on them, but even the piece of paper in his typewriter looks like it's empty at the top.

When Aurelia and Jamie go to grab his book pages out of the lake, they struggle to swim around.

There are some moments where Jamie is clearly just laying on his back, doing more floating than swimming.

The awkward swimming is probably because of how shallow the water was. Director Richard Curtis told Montclair Film in 2016 that it was actually just 11 inches deep.

When the president arrives at Downing Street, his car can be seen pulling into the gates.

The black car has American flags on the side of it, but it doesn't have the proper government plates that are on the real president's car, Cadillac One or "The Beast."

The license plates shown on the car in the film aren't even for Washington DC, they're for Washington state. 

Karen holds up two dolls that she's gift wrapping for her daughter's classmates and insults both of their looks.

They appear to actually be male Ken dolls restyled and dressed in drag before being packaged in unlabeled boxes. 

Mark is watching a Billy Mack interview on TV before Juliet comes over.

He grabs the remote and shuts the television off immediately after the TV announcer says, "Do not switch off!"

When Sarah and Karl are in Sarah's bedroom, a small clock can be seen on the nightstand to the left of her bed.

When the couple is first in her room, the clock reads five minutes to 12. But later in the scene, the clock goes back in time to about 10 minutes to 12.

Billy Mack's manager, Joe, has a ton of the singer's memorabilia in his home.

There are Billy Mack posters and pictures all around, including one poster that shows an album cover titled "Moments of Madness."

One of the few posters in Joe's home that doesn't feature his rock-star client is a large "Jaws" one.

Natalie confesses her feelings for the prime minister in a Christmas card.

She writes about being sorry about what happened and ends by saying that she's his.

The letter is a nice romantic gesture, but there's a pretty big spelling error — Christmas is missing its "r."

When John and Judy go on a date the day before the Christmas play, John is wearing a green jacket and dark pants and Judy is wearing a floral skirt with a pink top and pink jacket.

When they show up at the play the next day, the couple is wearing the exact same outfits they had on the night before — perhaps implying that the date went very well. 

While he's giving the eulogy, Daniel mentions that his late wife jokingly suggested he bring German model Claudia Schiffer as his date to her funeral.

Schiffer's name is brought up again when Sam asks Daniel about his love life.

At the end of the movie, Schiffer actually appears on screen as Carol, the mother of Sam's schoolmate, and she and Daniel immediately hit it off.

During the final airport scenes, Billy Mack stands in front of an ad for "the new iMac."

It's for the iMac G4, which debuted in January 2002.

The movie didn't come out until 2003, so the ad was probably a bit dated even then. 

This story was originally published in December 2021 and most recently updated on December 10, 2024. 

Before they head to France without him, Kevin's siblings and cousins are constantly teasing and mocking him.

While he's going around trying to figure out what to pack in his suitcase, one of his sisters tells him that he's "what the French call les incompétents."

Linnie was probably just brushing up on her basic French before their trip to Paris, but since "les incompétents" just translates to "the incompetent ones" it's not as impressive as she makes it seem — even if it does confuse Kevin. 

Like writer John Hughes' "The Breakfast Club," "Sixteen Candles," and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," "Home Alone" is set in the Chicagoland area. 

It's clear from the mention of a Chicago airport and the Chicago Bulls decor in Buzz's room.

The night before Kevin's family leaves for their trip, everyone is busy finishing up packing, eating dinner, and finalizing their plans — which results in a lot of chaos. 

After Kevin spills a bunch of milk, Mr. McCallister jumps to clean up the mess and wipe down the passports and plane tickets that are piled on the table. 

As he throws away a bundle of napkins, he accidentally picks up and tosses one of the passports. A shot of the garbage can also shows that he threw away an American Airlines booklet that most likely contained a plane ticket. 

If we assume it was Kevin's passport and ticket, this clever detail helps to explain why no one realized he didn't get on the plane.

Before loading up into the vans to go to the airport, Kevin's oldest cousin takes a quick head count of her siblings and cousins.

In the rush of trying to get to the airport on time, she accidentally counts a neighbor boy — who is curiously climbing through the van — which brings her total to the correct number even though Kevin is still sleeping in the attic. 

After the McCallisters board their plane, Kevin's mom is struck with the feeling that she forgot something.

After a moment of thought, Mr. McCallister tries to calm her nerves by saying he forgot to shut the garage door — which turns out to be true. 

There are plants throughout Kevin's house, including in the dining room and kitchen.

However, no one ever comes by the house to water them, which seems like something the family should've planned for before they left for the trip.

If they had hired a neighbor to look after their plants, they might have been able to help Kevin when he got left home alone. 

While looking through his family's belongings, Kevin finds a Playboy magazine in Buzz's room.

He opens it to a page in the middle before throwing it on the floor behind him. Judging by the way it lands, though, it seems like the rest of the pages were stuck together.

A 2017 Bustle article said the prop was a real edition of Playboy from 1989, so the crew may have taped everything else so that Macaulay Culkin (who played Kevin) wouldn't see any inappropriate content while they filmed the scene.

In certain kitchen shots, there's a decorated gingerbread house visible on the counter.

Like the plants, this seems like an odd thing to leave unattended while going on a long trip.

Kate, Kevin's mom, also made a point of asking people to finish the milk the night before, so it wasn't like she was oblivious to the perishable food in her house. 

Throughout "Home Alone," Kevin watches a black-and-white film called "Angels With Filthy Souls" and later uses it as part of his defense plan against the Wet Bandits. 

Although it looks pretty realistic and its lines have since become famous, the movie isn't real. The scenes were made specifically for "Home Alone."

After realizing he's home alone, Kevin runs around the house doing whatever he wants, including jumping up and down on his parents' bed while eating popcorn.

Later, when he hides under their bed when a police officer knocks on the door, there's popcorn on the floor from his earlier antics.

When Kevin first goes down into his basement, he walks past a couple of mannequins as well as other storage items. 

These later prove useful when he rigs them up near the windows to trick the Wet Bandits into thinking there are adults in the house.

Marv and Harry, the robbers who try to break into Kevin's house throughout the movie, go by the nickname the Wet Bandits.

Marv explains at one point that the name fits their signature move of flooding the houses that they steal from, but the nickname can also be a reference to the fact that they drive around in a plumbing van.

When Kevin showers and styles his hair in the bathroom, there are at least 20 visible light- and dark-green towels all around the room.

Seeing as there were just a bunch of people in the house, it makes sense that there are multiple used towels hanging to dry. But there are also a number of clean towels stacked on the shelves.

The McCallister's house is fairly large, so this probably isn't the only bathroom, making the sheer number of towels even more absurd.  

The airport-shuttle driver, police officer, and pizza deliverer all knock over the statue next to the McCallister's driveway.

The pizza boy even drives into it a second time when he brings Kevin a pizza. 

"Home Alone" has a PG-rating, but one of the robbers can be heard cursing during a scene. 

When Marv loses his shoe in the dog door, he says "shit" in a low voice. It's even confirmed in the movie's subtitles.

The pizzeria featured multiple times in the film is called Little Nero's.

It isn't a real restaurant, but it seems to be a spin on the popular pizza chain, Little Caesars. 

Like Julius Caesar, Nero was a Roman political head, and both the fictional and real pizza chains feature Roman mascots. 

There's also a legend that Nero fiddled while Rome burned, making the pizzeria's tagline — "No Fiddlin' Around" — a clever joke.

The plans and traps that Kevin arranges to outsmart the robbers throughout the movie are pretty brilliant.

But despite how clever he is, Kevin stills misspells "ornaments" on his battle plan — which is a helpful reminder that the character is, in fact, only 8.

One of the many traps Kevin sets for the robbers includes placing ornaments under a window so that Marv will step on them when he tries to break in.

The decorations on the tree seem to be shaped like candy canes, presents, and 2-D stars. However, the ornaments that Marv steps on are more colorful and shaped much differently. 

The ornaments on the floor were reportedly made of candy to help prevent any serious injuries, and actor Daniel Stern (who played Marv) wore rubber feet just in case. 

Old Man Marley scares Kevin at the beginning of the film, especially when he walks up behind him at the drugstore and places a bloody, bandaged hand on the counter. 

Throughout the movie, though, Kevin interacts with him and learns that the rumors about him aren't true. He also finds out that Mr. Marley is estranged from his son and granddaughter — a plotline that director Chris Columbus added to the film. 

When Kevin and Mr. Marley talk in the church, the heavy, white bandage on his hand has been replaced with a smaller, tan one. At the end of the film, when he patches up his relationship with his son, his hand is completely healed. 

This story was originally published on December, 14, 2020, and most recently updated on December 6, 2024. 

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