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Indie theaters like Cinema 21 helped push Portland to the top of Movoto's ranking of the best cities for movie lovers in the U.S.

(Brittany Greeson, The Oregonian)

It's

. But trying to calculate just how strong a market that is, or how the movie scene here compares to other cities, has long been a matter of fierce debate.

Well, the folks at the

at trying to answer that debate once and for all. They collected per-capita movie data for 100 cities, including number of movie theaters, indie theaters, video stores, drive-ins, film festivals, and more, then ranked each city from 1-100. Per Movoto:

Guess who came out on top? Oh that's right, you probably read the headline.

According to Movoto, the Rose City is the No. 1 city for movie lovers in the U.S., besting San Francisco, Seattle, New York and even Los Angeles, which somehow

(and casting a suspicious light on the whole process).

Here's what Movoto had to say about PDX:

It's unclear what makes Kennedy School's screen more notable than, say,

,

,

,

or any of the other great indie theaters in Portland and beyond. (I do know that if Movoto decided to next rank the quality of movie theater draft beer, Portland would definitely come out on top again.)

-- Michael Russell