Time marches on and the majority of deaf and hard of hearing people are STILL unable to go to their neighborhood movie theater and buy a ticket. Things are improving thanks to lawsuits, but there is still a long way to go. Right now, there are three technologies for movie theater captions: open captioning (Insight Cinema, a successor to Tripod Captioned Films, which had been screening open captioned films for years), Rear Window captioning, which involves the use of a viewing device, and Digital Theater Systems - Cinema Subtitling Systems, which projects the captions directly onto the movie.

If a movie theater is under construction in your area, call the district manager (you can find out who that is by calling any cinema in your town) for your area. Talk to the district manager about your desire for captioned films, using any of the currently available technologies, and persuade them to set aside one screen in the new multi-screen theater for regular showings of captioned films, AND emphasize that deaf and hard of hearing people deserve a chance to see the movies at reasonable times for reasonable time periods. If you make them aware of the need very early in the process, there is a better chance of a positive response. When I heard that a new movie theater was being built in my hometown, I called the district managers repeatedly to press the need for captions. They did not build a new theater, but did install rear window captioning in an existing theater in a mall nearby! Now I can drive down the street to go to the movies just like a hearing person - except that I am still limited based on what movies are available with rear window captioning, and the movies are only available for limited times.

Deborah Kendrick has written an excellent article that speaks to the need for accessible movies. With her gracious permission, it has been posted to this site.