Why Can’t I Find Home Alone on Netflix?

rj frometa Sunday, December 19, 2021 Content Leave a comment

With Christmas just around the corner, many of you probably want to kick back with some good Christmas classics. For some of you, that means re-watching the Home Alone series. That also includes us since we love those movies. They’re fun to watch, have a heartwarming story and message, and feature overall great acting.

But can you watch those movies on Netflix?

You can, but things are a bit tricky. The Home Alone series isn’t available everywhere Netflix is. You can only watch the movies in a few countries. To find out which ones, we recommend using StreamCatcher from ProPrivacy (https://streamcatcher.proprivacy.com). It’s an online tool that tells you where Netflix titles are available.

If you’re in a hurry, here’s what you need to know about the movies’ availability: all three are only available in Hong Kong and Thailand.

Quite a bummer, we know. But don’t worry – we’ll show you how to unblock these lovable Christmas movies right now. Also, we’ll answer any other questions you might have too.

How to Unblock Home Alone on Netflix Anywhere in the World

The easiest thing you can do is use a VPN. That’s an online service that hides your IP address and encrypts your traffic.

How does it help you unblock the movies on Netflix, though?

To keep it simple, it routes your traffic through a server that acts as a middleman between your device and Netflix. Basically, it will intercept your traffic, and forward it to Netflix for you. Due to that, Netflix will think your connections are coming from the VPN. So, the site will only see the VPN server’s IP address.

Since IPs reveal geo-locations, it’s obvious Netflix will think you’re from a different country. As long as that country is Thailand or Hong Kong, you’ll be able to watch the Home Alone movies.

Which VPNs Unblock Home Alone on Netflix?

Contrary to popular belief, not all VPNs work with Netflix. Some of them can only unblock the site intermittently.

Why?

Because Netflix is able to detect their IPs. Once it does that, it blacklists them. If you then try to use Netflix with a blocked IP, you’ll end up on the Netflix proxy error page.

While there are a few things you can try to avoid seeing that page, the best solution is to prevent that from happening in the first place. To do that, you’ll need to use a VPN provider that regularly refresh its servers’ IPs. If it does that, Netflix won’t be able to block their addresses fast enough.

That’s easier said than done, though. It’s not like VPNs advertise how often they refresh their IPs. Providers just say they “unblock Netflix.”

Don’t worry – we have a shortcut for you. We rigorously tested dozens of VPNs, and found that ExpressVPN, NordVPN, and CyberGhost VPN are always able to unblock Netflix titles. Other providers (especially free ones) experienced issues.

Why Isn’t Home Alone Available on Netflix in My Country?

It’s because Netflix wasn’t able to secure licensing rights for your country. Since they don’t own these movies, they can’t stream them worldwide – only in regions they bought the rights for.

As for why they only licensed the movies in Hong Kong and Thailand, it’s hard to say. Maybe only the rights for those countries were for sale. The copyright holder might have already sold the licensing rights for other regions to different streaming sites and TV networks.

Or maybe Netflix’s analytics showed that only people in Thailand and Hong Kong would be interested in these movies. Since they spend a lot of money on licensed content, they have to be sure their investments see a decent ROI. Otherwise, they’d end up in the red really soon.

How Does Netflix Stop Me from Watching Home Alone?

The site uses geo-blocking to control what content you can and can’t access. Basically, Netflix checks your IP address, sees what country you are form, and redirects your traffic to the appropriate regional library (which doesn’t have the Home Alone series).

How does Netflix know what your IP address is?

It’s simple – it sees it when it checks your connection requests. And the site receives those requests every time you visit it.

Why Are My Speeds Slow When Watching Home Alone with a VPN?

Unfortunately, VPNs will slow down your initial speeds. It’s usually not by a lot. But since the movies are only available in Hong Kong and Thailand, there’s a good chance many of you are unblocking them from other continents.

Because the distance is so big (thousands of miles/kilometers), it’ll take longer for data packets to travel between your device and the VPN, so the speeds will be slower. There’s not much you can do about that, other than making sure you use the location which is closer to you (Hong Kong if you’re on the West Coast, and Thailand if you’re from Europe).

Luckily, there are other ways to boost your VPN speeds:

Use lightweight protocols like L2TP/IPSec, WireGuard, and IKEv2 instead of OpenVPN.
If you’re stuck with OpenVPN, use it over UDP instead of TCP.
Use wired connections instead of WiFi, or bring your device as close to the router as you can.
Use split tunneling to make sure the VPN only routes Netflix traffic. If there’s less data to encrypt and decrypt, you should get slightly faster speeds.

To Make a Long Story Short

The Home Alone series is available on Netflix, but you can only watch it in Thailand and Hong Kong. Netflix doesn’t have licensing rights to stream these movies in other countries.

To watch them where you live, just use a VPN server in Thailand and Hong Kong. Netflix will think your traffic is coming from those countries, and will let you watch the movies.

If you know other unblocking methods that work with Netflix, please tell us about them in the comments below.