I give you folks props for watching so much foreign film

Since American movies are foreign movies, or foreign language movies to most of the world, watching foreign movies is not really that big of a deal

Why not start slowly-some Jacques Tati or Pierre Etaix? Both filmmakers made works which depended largely on visual comedy, without a lot of dialogue.

I assume you drive a car? Think of the trouble many people have to pass a driving test. And not surprising when you list all the different actions you have to perform simultaneously, or nearly so. But after three weeks, or three months (it varies), you are driving instinctively without consciously thinking about the separate actions you are taking.

Well, watching a film with sub-titles, you only have two actions to perform. As phantomparticle writes above, it soon becomes instinctive if you persist for a few months. Most literate people have at least a smattering of the main European languages, French, Spanish, Italian, German, etc. Probably not enough to understand continuous dialog, but enough to make us feel that we are not in a hostile alien environment and to pick up a few aural clues to ease our way.

I have been watching a lot of Chinese, Korean and Japanese movies lately and I miss that help. But, and I could be mistaken here, it seems that their culture is not to cram in masses of dialog. Less is more. And that makes it easier to flicker between the screen and the titles without missing anything. And I suspect that Altmanish scenes of characters talking across each other would be considered plain rude.

I have been exasperated lately by a number of American DVDs of praised movies where the choice of subtitles may typically include Spanish and French subtitles, but not English. American is a foreign language to many English-speakers as well, especially in modern films with fast cutting, multi-layered soundtracks, and actors who have barely, if at all, been trained to enunciate. Method mumbling and street vernacular can be very effective in presenting realism, but spare a thought for us poor non-American English speakers. The cost of adding English subtitles must be minimal as no translation is required and they already have the script to copy from.

I forgot to add that, these days, thinking back to movies I have very recently watched, I sometimes cannot immediately remember whether or not they were subtitled, so instinctive does it become.

I watch a lot of Non-English language films, probably more than I do English language. Outside of the occasional particularly wordy sequence, you get used to it.

I even watch English language movies with subtitles if they are available. I usually do my movie watching in the evenings when other household members are reading or sleeping so I have to keep the volume low. I like to think that my hearing is not degrading as the years pass but I find myself increasingly thankful for subtitles on any movie I watch.

I've seen a lot of French and Italian movies lately, both crime and drama movies, and maybe I've been very lucky with most of them, since many of the directors seems to know not to use too much dialogue and still with the help of movements tell their story, and usually they have turned out to be really good movies, using subtitles.

Some comedies, especially Italian, seems to rely too much on dialogue, and that makes some impossible to follow with sub-titles since I tend to read more than actually watch the movie.

Since English is foreign to me too, I can usually follow them without subtitles, but sometimes I wish I had them, like English cockney or American South, there is a lot that is lost on me.

The Grass Harp 1995, sadly a lot of dialogue was impossible for me to understand, and there was no subtitles.

This Happy Breed 1944, some dialogue was impossible for me to understand, but on this movie there thankfully was subtitles.

That may be the case for you because you are, presumably (?) an American. But Americans only comprise approximately 4% of the total world population, so Feologild Oakes' comment remains valid for the other 96%.