Can you easily follow a movie's plot?

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I often can't, at least on the first or second viewing. I naturally focus on the images and soundtrack, while I fail to pay attention to the dialog. Because of this, I often only follow the plot through the images - until I've seen the movie enough times to have absorbed most of the dialog, or until someone's explained the plot this way.

It used to be more extreme. I used to tune out all the dialog in movies. I just experienced them as moving images set to music, like long music videos. It wasn't until my college years that I started to make myself pay attention to what people were saying. That transition occurred after watching certain movies enough times to realize how good the dialog was, and what I was missing.

Is anyone else like this? Do you have to consciously make yourself pay attention to what people are saying in movies?

Do you find yourself reacting to your first viewing of a film by saying something like, "The landscape resembled northeastern Arizona more than southwest Texas, and the so-called turtle was actually a Greek tortoise," while other people discuss the characters and plot? I'm like this. I notice the details before I realize what a film's really supposed to be about, or what happened.

I'm the same way. I usually find myself lost on the plot, and I have to ask whoever is with me about what's happening. People don't like watching movies with me.

When I'm watching a movie alone, I tend to rewind over sections of dialogue to ensure I'm taking it all in.

I usually can.

i usually have problems to recognize the people there. like at one moment there is some woman and in the next moment there is another one, but i cannot figure out whether it is a different one or the one from before. once i get to find a way how to distinguish them i can follow the plot easily.

i have a friend (NT) who cannot follow it and she asks me about what's going on there during the movie. not nice

I had a terrible time with the Brit comedy "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels." In part it may have been the heavy dialect barrier due to the use of a specific sort of slang that was featured prominently throughout the film, but it took me several viewings to get the "big picture" due to...perhaps it was the pacing or the way the various plot threads meander, criss-cross, and finally collide.

Another one that gave me a little trouble was "Requiem for a Dream." I'm not sure if I was meant to intuit more than I initially did about the plot of that one or if I was just too caught up in Aronofsky's (brilliant) cinematography to focus on the plot, but...either way, it was confusing for the first couple viewings.

Oddly enough, I absolutely adore David Lynch movies which are, as some may already know, rather infamous for being extremely hard to figure out due to his non-linear storytelling style. Despite that, he manages to create such atmosphere (that's often scarier than regular "horror" movies) that you can figure out what's going on by feeling what the characters feel. It's truly a unique and wonderful thing to experience such strong empathy when usually I feel so disconnected. Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive are good for this. Inland Empire as well, but it's probably the hardest to figure out and features a couple shots that seem to have a particularly disturbing effect on Aspies, as both myself and a friend of mine who also has AS were mortified beyond words by them. I can't even look at a still image of one of them without wanting to look away.

I found it happening last night, though, too - the detail/plot thing. I was watching "Saw IV" (guilty pleasure, I know, I know) and halfway through I realized I had no clue what was going on, even though I could describe the premise and execution of each scene I had viewed in great detail.

I have a tough time with that. Mostly I just can't focus on the plot, I find my mind just starts thnking about something else. Sometmes it's the film details but usually it's my own reverie of thoughts. Some films I just find myself watching and following quite naturally - they have to be clear though.

It depends on how much of the plot depends on reading social cues- that is where I can lose awareness of the story.

Magliabechi.

At least half of the time, if I don't make a concerted effort, no, I can't really follow the plot at all.

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Face recognition is hard for me too. I prefer films with just a few characters.

It's the passivity I can't cope with. I couldn't fathom a fiction book ("Full Moon" by P.G.Wodehouse) until I'd actively taken notes about the early plot and characters, as if it were a piece of college work - once I'd done that, I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of it. I gather that active working on the details of a subject increases the depth of the mental processing and so helps the ideas stick in the mind. I can't absorb much without doing.

I think I catch a lot of the actors' facial expressions OK.

I couldn't understand the plot of Pirates of the Caribbean part 3 at all, but I didn't get bored because I liked the photography. On the other hand, I'd already lost the plot of part 2. I think it's a cult thing, Part 1 seemed simple enough but I felt it was asking a lot to follow the convolutions of all that followed, unless the viewer is already heavily into it.

I don't like sitting still all that time either.

I still have absolutely no idea what happened in Casino Royale, but that seemed above average convoluted...

No problem! Within the first ten minutes, not only have I figured out the plot, But I know which character dies next.

I often have that face recognition problem too, it´s best when the characters don´t look anything like each other. I also have problems with some of these recent political/biographical movies that are too detailed or have too much information; I get lost in the detail, then I get tired, then I can´t take anything in anymore. I like to watch dvds using subtitles, then I can also read the movie at the same time; making sure I get all the words seems to help a lot (in fact, I´m quite a fanatic about that!) There are some movies that are very clear to me, though. Particularly movies with a real atmosphere, with strong pictures and good (not tacky) music.

It really depends on what the movie is. Some movies are just naturally confusing.

that's because it was objectively a mess & didn't make any sense.
i think i'm less interested in the plots of movies than most people. i don't really mind if someone tells me the twist at the end, or if i'm enjoying a movie & then the ending is dreadful it doesn't make me hate the whole movie, whereas for lots of people it seems to retroactively ruin the entire thing.
also it only seems to be in movies that i have difficulty telling people apart.

usally i can. mostly i would lose focus because either there are alot of small stories going on or the plot is really wierd with to much going on. those kinds of movies are also my favorite.

No, espicaly people movies. It seems to me that some movies like some of the extreme action films like Die Hard have no plot at all, it's just a bunch of things exploding and people taking.