Dan Halsted is the quintessential movie buff.

“Movies are moving history. It’s not just the history of what we’ve done, but the history of what we all go through in our lives. And cinema is the ultimate artform,” he said.

For Halsted, there’s no greater thrill than sitting down in a theater, watching a film with other movie lovers and then chatting about it when the lights come up.

“Everybody likes to show a movie that they love to a friend, and being able to do that to 400 people, it’s special. It’s not just watching a movie,” he said.

It’s no surprise, then, that Halsted ended up working at Portland’s historic Hollywood Theatre.

“At the age of 18, I got a job as a projectionist, and I was excited to find out that there’s a job, that you just watch movies and handle film, and you don’t have to deal with people. And I thought, ‘I’m going to do this for the rest of my life!’” he said.

Halsted eventually became the theater’s head film programmer and has worked tirelessly to provide audiences with the same thrill he gets when watching a movie in theaters. For him, no place does the movie-going experience better than the Hollywood Theatre.

Located on Northeast Sandy Boulevard, film lovers consider the Hollywood Theatre a landmark of Portland’s independent cinema scene, regularly selling out special screenings of films, and bringing in cinematic icons, like Quentin Tarantino.

This year the beloved movie house celebrates its centennial, with special events all year long. The theater’s long and storied history goes back to the beginning days of cinema itself.

First established in 1926, the 1,500-seat theater started out as a stage for vaudeville acts complete with a Wurlitzer organ that is still functional today, and still in the house.

With the invention of a new medium called film, Hollywood Theatre adapted, meeting the needs of new audiences.

“And then in the ’60s, this was a Cinerama theater that used three projectors running at the same time to project a gigantic image,” he said. “Then in the ’70s, the theater was chopped up into three different auditoriums and then it became a second-run theater. Everything that happened in film history happened in this building.”

In 1983, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Echoes of Hollywood Theatre’s past are reflected in the building. While traveling up Northeast Sandy Boulevard, it’s hard to miss the large, brightly lit marquee in lights that spell out “HOLLYWOOD.”

The façade is decked out in ornate Mediterranean-style architecture, complete with swooping arches, and its large front doors welcome film lovers from around the world to come in and enjoy a night out.

The beating heart of the theater is the projection room, a small room at the back of the main auditorium that projects movies onto a 50-foot wide screen — perfect for epic, larger-than-life films that require only the biggest screens to view, like the classic film “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

“We have our own print of ’2001: [A] Space Odyssey,’ which we paid to have a brand new print made that then we hang on to and show whenever we want. And it always sells out every single time. I’ll show it about every six months, we’ll do a weekend of screenings, and they all sell out. I feel like it’s become something that if you live in Portland, you have to go do,” Halsted said.

In the age of home streaming and corporate megaplexes like Regal Cinemas and AMC, Hollywood Theatre and Oregon’s other independent theaters — like Cinemagic and Cinema21 in Portland, The Egyptian Theatre in Coos Bay and others — have remained a steady fixture for local movie lovers.

That’s because, as Halsted points out, of the diverse programming these theaters provide that normal megaplexes can’t.

“You walk up from the outside and there’s that gorgeous façade. It’s special coming to watch a movie here. It’s not just watching a movie. It’s a night out. And then the fact that we really do pride ourselves on the projection and the sound, the giant screen. It’s more special than just watching a movie at home or going to a megaplex to watch a movie.”

As the programming director, Halsted is responsible for balancing programming the latest movies with special screenings and events that keep the audience returning.

Since taking over, Halsted has been at the forefront of making a truly one-of-a-kind movie going experience, with special screenings of classics like the Japanese horror movie “House,” and a weekly kung fu movie showcase from his personal collection.

By far his biggest attractions have been events featuring special guests.

In 2015, Hollywood Theatre held a special event with director Quentin Tarantino, who was showing a special screening of his then-latest movie “The Hateful Eight.” The Hollywood Theatre projected the movie in 70mm film, a format that is twice as large as the standard 35mm film format.

“He came to watch it here, and he did a Q&A with the crowd. It was just perfect timing. Everything worked out on that, and it’s just something we become known for,” he said.

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In 2025, hip-hop artist RZA held a special screening of the kung fu movie “The Mystery of Chess Boxing” at Hollywood Theatre. The screening sold out almost immediately.

Halsted says that Portland’s film-loving community has stepped up in supporting independent movie theaters.

“We’re not the only ones. So many other independent theaters in Portland have survived. I was concerned after the pandemic, if everybody was going to make it. And everybody did. That is not the case in other cities,” he said.

In 2013, real estate website Movoto ranked Portland as the No. 1 city for movie lovers due to its large amounts of independent theaters and local film festivals.

Halsted admits he doesn’t really know why Portland is such a movie-loving town, but muses that it’s because of the city’s independent spirit.

“I do think part of it is because it rains all the time. Outside of that, I don’t know. We just have this weird outsider culture that loves movies and not just the classic films, but we can show obscure stuff and we can show just really fun, oddball movies, and we can draw a crowd,” he said.

Despite Hollywood Theatre’s iconic status, its history didn’t come without challenges. During the 1980s, the building fell into disrepair and many of its classic film formats were lost or destroyed.

In 1997, local film nonprofit Oregon Film and Video Foundation, currently known as Film Forever Northwest, purchased the theater with the hopes of preserving the building and continuing its legacy.

Through donations and subscribers, Hollywood Theatre has managed to keep the lights on and thrive as a premiere independent film theatre.

“So we get grant money, we have a membership program. We have over 6,000 members. People pay every month, and they get benefits from that. But that really helps to keep us going,” Halsted said.

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Since becoming a nonprofit, Hollywood Theatre has expanded its reach to promote local filmmaking and film culture.

In 2017, Hollywood Theatre opened the microcinema in Portland International Airport. The free cinema at the airport provides a space for travelers to rest, and take in a short film while they wait for their flight.

Wendy Given, art program manager at Port of Portland and PDX, praises the microcinema as a way for visitors to learn about the state.

Played on a 24-hour loop, the films are all from local filmmakers and tell stories about Oregon.

“I’m hoping that people can take away just the love of the theater, the love of the film culture in the city. We have new films every quarter, four times a year, and it’s a great way to learn about local filmmakers,” she said.

In 2018, Hollywood Theatre took over ownership of the iconic independent movie rental store Movie Madness. Through that process, the Hollywood Theatre and Movie Madness began to work together to create a special experience for movie lovers.

Matt Parnell is managing director and head curator of Movie Madness.

“When Hollywood Theatre took over and we became a nonprofit organization, we weren’t looking at ourselves so much as a retail business anymore, but more of a resource for the community and all the staff that was kept on. We all started to reframe our thinking of ourselves and realize this is a film archive.” Parnell said.

Boasting more than 90,000 titles, Movie Madness serves as not only a rental store, but an accessible history of cinema.

“Most of our stuff doesn’t exist on any streaming service and even the stuff that does some that only exist in edited forms. So for us, it’s really important to think about the archive we have, keeping it intact, protecting that archive and making it available to the public to enjoy,” Parnell said.

With 2026 marking the theater’s centennial, Halsted is planning a yearlong celebration of movies as well as a look forward to the future of the theater.

“We do want to do a lot of restoration work to the theater in the next few years. Then having Movie Madness across the street hopefully, maybe it’ll bring in some other film-related businesses,” he said.

But for Halsted, it’s the love of movies that keeps his love and dedication to the iconic theater going.

“What I hope is people come here, see a film they’ve never experienced, maybe it inspires them, maybe then they’ll go to Movie Madness and find more movies by the same director or from that same genre and keep watching movies,” he said.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/02/07/portlands-hollywood-theatre-screens-100-years-of-movie-magic/