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If you saw the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” in theaters, you may have been surprised by a caption when the movie began: “folk music plays.”
Captions for English-language movies are increasingly common in New York City cinemas, surprising some viewers but delighting others.
That’s because of a city ordinance passed in 2021 that requires most theaters to offer a certain amount of “open captioned” screenings each week, meaning that dialogue and other sounds are written or described in large subtitles on the screen.
The law was intended to help people who rely on captions — such as people who deaf or hard of hearing, English language learners, people with autism, or even people who simply like subtitles — enjoy movies.
However, not all NYC cinemas are complying with the law, the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection confirmed, leaving moviegoers who rely on captions with fewer options. Advocates say the city’s failure to enforce the law undermines a key accessibility measure meant to ensure equal opportunity for film fans.
The need for captions
Jerry Bergman, 79, has been a movie buff his whole life. He said his mother would seek refuge from the summer heat by taking him to the movies in a stroller when he was a toddler.
Around age 60 his hearing began to decline rapidly.
“If you can imagine going to a movie theater and seeing a foreign film without subtitles, that’s kind of what it feels like for many of us to sit in a movie theater and not have access to English-language captioning,” Bergman said in a Zoom interview where he could read conversation via the platform’s live transcription feature.
For years, he relied upon closed captions to watch movies in theaters, usually on a long-necked “CaptiView” device provided by the cinema that fits in a movie seat’s cupholder. Bergman said the devices helped him keep up his movie fandom, but that they weren’t always available or working, or didn’t fit in the cupholder, or had to be picked up and returned far away from his auditorium.
“Not only is it inconvenient, but it singles us out as being noticeably different from everyone else in the auditorium,” Bergman said.
Bergman began getting involved in advocacy work, and is now a committee member of the New York City chapter of the Hearing Loss Association of America. He was inspired by a lawsuit brought against cinema owners in California in 2010, requiring them to provide open captions. The Hearing Loss Association of America chapter joined other disability-related groups to make a similar push in New York.
The city’s open captions law took effect in May 2022 despite opposition from the trade group National Association of Theatre Owners of New York, which testified that the law wasn’t necessary, Bergman said. According to a statement provided to trade publication Boxoffice Pro, the group was “committed to making sure that the deaf and hard of hearing community feels welcome and included at our member theaters,” but was concerned that audiences would reject captioned screenings. The group did not respond to multiple emailed requests for comment.
The law requires that movie theaters with more than 10 showings in a week must have open captions for 25% of them, up to a maximum of four, with captioned screenings clearly advertised and spread between peak hours like weekends and weekday evenings as well as less popular showtimes.
Cinemas that don’t heed the requirement are subject to fines ranging from $100 to $500 for each violation.
At least five cinemas have been investigated for failure to comply but no violations have been issued, according to a spokesperson for the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, which administers the law.
“I’m not surprised,” Bergman said. “Enforcement is the weakest link in accessibility.”
Bergman and his fellow advocates identified four cinemas that were not advertising open captioned screenings on their websites at the time of publication, including Atrium Stadium Cinemas on Staten Island, as well as Cobble Hill Cinemas, Kew Gardens Cinemas, and Williamsburg Cinemas. None of the theaters responded to multiple requests via email and phone for comment.
A bill that would expand the requirement statewide is currently in the state Senate.
‘We were anticipating a little more pushback.’
Major chains like AMC and Regal cinemas have complied “beautifully,” Bergman said, illustrating that compliance is not difficult for modern cinemas with digital projection, where the film distributor includes an open captions file with the digital package the theater receives.
Smaller cinemas with few screenings, or which show older movies on analog film, can be exempted from the requirement, but the ones advocates have cited for failing to comply do not fall into this category.
Jeff Delauter, vice president of operations for Film at Lincoln Center, said that when the law first rolled out, he and his colleagues in the city’s cinema community were nervous that open captions might dampen attendance. Instead, they’ve seen no change at all.
Delauter said they receive an occasional complaint from someone who purchased a ticket without realizing the screening would be captioned, and are happy to exchange it.
“It’s been surprisingly smooth,” Delauter said. “We were anticipating a little more pushback.”
He speculates that with more people activating captions when watching television or streaming at home, viewers have come to prefer or at least tolerate them.
Indeed, the idea of subtitles on movies might have seemed unlikely even a decade ago, but a CBS news poll last year showed that more than half of Americans keep subtitles on some or all of the time. And captions are increasingly popular on social media apps such as Instagram and TikTok.
On a subreddit for NYC moviegoers who were polled about captions, commenters were split between those who found captioned screenings unwatchable and those who didn’t mind or preferred them, and appreciated the city’s efforts to provide accessible options.
“I don’t need it but it never bothers me and sometimes you miss a word and it’s helpful,” wrote one commenter. “I leave them on at home because sound mixing for TV these days is trash.”
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