Portland, Oregon, is a major city without a major tourist destination. New York City has the Statue of Liberty and countless museums. Chicago has Millennium Park, while Los Angeles is brimming with iconic places. People who visit Portland come for its access to nature and excellent restaurant scene. Visitors may flock to Powell\u2019s Books, but Portland doesn\u2019t have a renowned landmark such as the Space Needle or the Hollywood sign. For moviegoers, however, the Hollywood Theatre should be reason enough to visit the City of Roses.<\/p>\n
The theatre, which turns 100 years old in 2026, screens not only first-run movies, but a deep bench of retrospectives from classics to curated series such as Kung Fu Theater and Queer Horror. Featuring one large auditorium with a 50-foot screen that can hold 400 people and two smaller rooms upstairs with a capacity of just over 100 each, audiences can expect an expertly curated screening surrounded by people who love going to the movies.<\/p>\n
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The Hollywood Theatre marquee. (Credit: David Harris)<\/p>\n
\u201cMy goal has always been for this place to be a movie mecca, that if you\u2019re somebody who loves cinema, you have to go to the Hollywood Theatre,\u201d said Dan Halsted, the cinema\u2019s head film programmer.<\/p>\n
For example, in October audiences can see Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s One Battle After Another in 70mm but can also go deeper and buy tickets for Paul Morrissey\u2019s Blood for Dracula or Doctor X, an obscure pre-Code horror film from 1932.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Hollywood is more than a venue,\u201d said Bennett Campbell Ferguson, a local critic who writes for a website called Fools Who Dream. \u201cThe moment you step through its front doors, you\u2019re stepping into the cinephile\u2019s equivalent of a town square\u2014a community that brings people together not only for the sake of movies, but for the sake of human connection.\u201d<\/p>\n
While most mainstream cinemas screen everything digitally today, the Hollywood often shows movies on film\u2014in both 35mm and 70mm formats. Halsted believes that audiences can tell the difference when watching a movie on film or digital and respond in kind.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can tell the audience is more engaged [when watching film],\u201d he said. \u201cPeople aren\u2019t getting up as much. They\u2019re not looking at their phones. It\u2019s like they\u2019re in a trance. There\u2019s something about that 24 frames a second going through the projector that engages the human mind in a way that digital can\u2019t replicate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dan Halsted shows off his collection of 35mm Kung Fu films. (Credit: David Harris)<\/p>\n
While the Hollywood screens some movies on digital, audiences can visit its website<\/a> to see which are on film. For those who love the imperfections of film and the flicker of light that comes from the projection booth, this unique opportunity makes the Hollywood a special place. Recently, the theater played favorites like The Goonies and Jaws on 35mm, selling out multiple screenings.<\/p>\n \u201cSeeing something on film, it\u2019s like listening to a vinyl record or staring at a developing photo,\u201d said Dom Sinacola, who reviews film for the Portland Mercury. \u201cIt\u2019s not just about the movie, but about the life of the reels, what\u2019s happened to them and where they\u2019ve been, who\u2019s owned them even\u2014all these moments in time, every time you expose those reels to light, captured and altered by the next moment. A film reel is physical in a deeply satisfying way that digital just isn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n Halsted, who has always been a film junkie, collects rare kung fu 35mm prints. He screens them weekly for sold-out audiences and holds the only known film copies for some of the titles.<\/p>\n \u201cLike, every movie is better watching in a theater, but the electricity that gets going in a crowd watching a kung fu movie, it\u2019s incredible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A 70mm copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Credit: David Harris)<\/p>\n The Hollywood Theatre also has a fan base of people in the movie industry. Halsted counts RZA, Pam Grier, Joe Dante, and Todd Haynes as past visitors. When Quentin Tarantino released The Hateful Eight in 70mm, the director even turned up at the theater for one screening.<\/p>\n \u201cAs I was talking to [Tarantino] on stage, I was like, \u2018Oh yeah, the first movie I ever saw at the Hollywood was Pulp Fiction,\u2019\u201d Halsted said. \u201cI saw it here. It was a second-run theater at that time in the \u201990s, and I remember watching the movie, and there was water leaking in through the roof. I like to think about how far this place has come.\u201d<\/p>\n Originally a 1,500-seat auditorium for both movies and vaudeville, the Hollywood was divided into three separate cinemas in 1975 and ran second-run films in the \u201980s and \u201990s. In 1997, the nonprofit Film Forever Northwest took over the theater, and after a major renovation campaign in the 2010s, the theater received new screens, seats, and sound.<\/p>\n (Courtesy of the Hollywood Theatre)<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I took over programming and when Doug [Whyte] took over as executive director, this place was about to close,\u201d Halsted said. \u201cIt was in horrible shape in 2010. I\u2019d already worked here as a projectionist. I remember showing movies and just nobody [showed up]. The screen downstairs had these big stains on it. It was cold in here. It was awful, and the programming was just bad.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Whyte, there are plans in the works to not only continue renovating the Hollywood but to also relocate Movie Madness, Portland\u2019s famed video store that rents out more than 90,000 titles, across the street to create a film district. The project aims to raise $16 million for a comprehensive renovation that includes the bathrooms, electrical, seats, exterior improvements, and more sometime in late 2026 or early 2027.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has original plumbing from 1926,\u201d Whyte said. \u201cSo that\u2019s a job. New bathrooms, new seats, new carpet. We\u2019re going to restore the murals in the auditoriums. We\u2019re going to get new chandeliers and redo the concession stand.\u201d<\/p>\n (Courtesy of the Hollywood Theatre)<\/p>\n But the Hollywood isn\u2019t alone when the time comes to raise money. Multiple celebrities have already offered support for the theater and its mission.<\/p>\n \u201cTodd Haynes gave us a quote about what we\u2019re doing,\u201d Whyte said. \u201cSean Baker just gave us an endorsement video. Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams, Gus Van Sant, Kelly Reichardt, Natalie Portman. All these people think it\u2019s totally cool what we\u2019re up to.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/span><\/div>\n
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