Since 2015, the Hollywood Theatre has been the only movie theater in Portland that screens films on 70 mm, which features a greater aspect ratio and higher resolution than traditional 35 mm film.
It’s a noteworthy distinction in our cinephile-filled city. And this December, the theater will be utilizing its 70 mm projector to the max, closing out 2023 with screenings of films from directors like Spike Lee, Stanley Kubrick, Christopher Nolan, Ridley Scott and Quentin Tarantino.
First up (on Dec. 26 and 28) is Oppenheimer, Nolan’s narratively inventive epic starring Cillian Murphy as the eponymous father of the atomic bomb, which looked astonishingly vivid when it screened on 70 mm at the Hollywood last summer.
Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, presented on the Hollywood’s own private print, will screen Dec. 26, 29 and 30. And on Dec. 27 and 29, the theater will show a film Kubrick almost made: Napoleon, Scott’s eccentric portrayal of the notorious French emperor, who is brought to memorably bizarre life by Joaquin Phoenix.
Lee’s Malcom X (Dec. 29 and 30), which stars Denzel Washington, will be the last of the theater’s fact-based films for the year. And rounding out the 70 mm offerings will be Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, which is fitting, given that when the film played the Hollywood in 2015, QT himself made a surprise appearance.