The beloved Catherine O’Hara passed away on January 30, 2026, and while she was remembered for her role in the television show “Schitt’s Creek,” the late actress also starred in many memorable movies.
From “Home Alone” to “A Mighty Wind,” here are seven of O’Hara’s best movie lines ever.
1: Home Alone
O’Hara played Kate McCallister, Kevin McCallister’s mom, in the 1990 film “Home Alone.” After realizing the family left the young Kevin at home on their way to Paris, Kate frantically tries her best to make her way back to her son, but is unable to book a flight.
She then yells at the airline attendant, “This is Christmas! The season of perpetual hope! And I don’t care if I have to get out on your runway and hitchhike! If it costs me everything I own, if I have to sell my soul to the devil himself, I am going to get home to my son!”
2: Beetlejuice
The original “Beetlejuice” film is a hit cult classic that had O’Hara as the eccentric artist Delia Deetz. She wants to remodel the haunted house, and when her husband pushes back, she tells him, “Charles, I will not stop living and breathing art just because you need to relax. I’m here with you. I will live with you in this hellhole, but I must express myself. If you don’t let me gut out this house and make it my own, I will go insane, and I will take you with me!”
3: Waiting For Guffman
“Waiting for Guffman” was one of Catherine O’Hara’s hilarious mockumentary films in which she played the aspiring actress, Sheila Albertson.
“You know, I want to try that less-is-more kind of acting. Where you just, when you’re talking to someone, you just close your eyes, and you look at them when you’re not talking to the person,” she says of her technique.
“I mean, you open your eyes when you’re looking away, but then when you’re talking to the person, you go like that. And then you open your eyes, and then you look back at the person, but you never open your eyes when you’re talking to them,” she continues.
4: The Nightmare Before Christmas
O’Hara was behind the voice of Sally in “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” and she also lent her singing talents to the Tim Burton stop-motion film.
During a haunting scene, O’Hara sings, “I sense there’s something in the wind / That feels like tragedy’s at hand. / And though I’d like to stand by him, / Can’t shake this feeling that we have.”
5: Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
Poor Kate McCallister lost her Kevin again in “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York,” and when a cop tells her to put herself in her son’s shoes, she rambles, “Me? I’d probably be lying dead in the gutter somewhere. Oh, but not Kevin. Kevin is so much stronger and braver than I am, and I know Kevin’s fine, I know he is. But he’s still all by himself in a big city, and he doesn’t deserve that. He deserves to be at home with his family, around his Christmas tree.”
It then dawns on her where Kevin could be, as she says, “Oh, dear God. I know where he is. I need to get to Rockefeller Center.”
6: Best in Show
“Best in Show” was another mockumentary starring Catherine O’Hara, which showed her quirky and fun personality through her character, Cookie Fleck.
During a scene where Cookie and her husband, Gerry Fleck (Eugene Levy), are being interviewed on their first time meeting, he says, “I thought she was the prettiest thing I had ever seen. And she was there with somebody else. She was very popular back then. She had dozens of boyfriends.”
Cookie then responds, “Hundreds.”
7: A Mighty Wind
O’Hara and Levy teamed up again for “A Mighty Wind,” where they played folk singers, Mitch and Mickey.
One of the most heartfelt moments in the movie is when they perform their original song, “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow.”
“And when the veil of dreams has lifted / And the fairy tales have all been told / There’s a kiss at the end of the rainbow / More precious than a pot of gold,” the pair sing.
