Dialogue Heavy: The Hardest Subtitles to Read
It is now common for viewers to use subtitles or closed captions when watching their favorite TV series. But which shows deliver the most words per minute — and how do they stack up against the leading social media influencers? Kapwing crunched the numbers to find out.
We’re in the golden age of subtitles (translations into your language) and closed captions (for people who are hard of hearing).
Over half (55%) of the U.S. audience keeps subtitles turned on some or all of the time, according to a CBS News poll. They may use them to follow the plot, decode the slang or just enjoy the moistly undulating tentacles and other delectable sound descriptions.
It means that creators at all levels of the production process need to make every word count, from the writers to the editing team. But the cadence and complexity of a show’s dialogue are too crucial to its identity to simply snip it to fit a single standard. As a result, some shows are easier to read than others.
To find out which popular shows and online creators have the easiest and hardest subtitles to read, Kapwing calculated the average number of words per minute in the latest episodes across the top genres.
Table of Contents
What We Did
We counted the number of subtitled words in up to 50 of the latest episodes of the most popular TV shows and divided it by episode length to find the average words per minute (WPM). Then, we repeated this process with the latest videos of each of the most popular video influencers/creators across YouTube, TikTok and Twitch.
For comparison, the average silent reading rate for English fiction is 260 words per minute. For reading aloud, it is 183 words per minute, although that doesn’t allow your companion to interrupt you and ask you to be quiet.
Key Findings
- Brooklyn Nine-Nine is the hardest show to read, with 206 words per minute.
- The easiest is The Book of Boba Fett (46 words per minute).
- She-Hulk is the wordiest superhero show, with 123 words per minute.
- The wordiest influencer is political commentator Hasanabi, with 189 words per minute.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine Has the Hardest Subtitles on TV
First, we ranked the shows that are most and least readable overall, regardless of genre. Brooklyn Nine-Nine is TV’s wordiest show at 206 words per minute (WPM).
That may be comfortably within the average speed (260 WPM) for reading a book, but it’s a lot to handle when there are also images to digest. More than 200 is hard for many to follow, according to the UK’s TV regulator Ofcom.
Another study found that “fast conversations spoken at 200wpm may provide the viewers with as little as 10%-20% of the time to look at the image.” No such problem faces the average Star Wars fan. The five top shows with the fewest words per minute are all from Disney’s space opera franchise. At 46 WPM, The Book of Boba Fett has the easiest subtitles to follow.
Legal Show is TV’s Hardest Drama To Read
The shoulder pads may be higher in Dynasty (163 WPM), but Suits edges ahead in the word count with 179 words per minute.
Thankfully, one of Suits’ most repeated lines of dialogue was “What did you just say to me?” giving viewers a brief respite from the legalese and even prompting the occasional rephrasing of previously heard dialogue.
At the other end of the scale, The Last of Us and Vikings have the easiest subtitles to follow, at 59 WPM each — although Vikings wins it by a few decimal points. While the lack of dialogue in Vikings was a relief as the writing deteriorated (“What man doesn’t want to have sex with a queen?”), The Last of Us achieved a rare feat in transposing game dialogue directly to the TV screen.
Although new dialogue was added, the show remained true to both the apocalypse and Western dramas, telling the story with landscapes and frowns.
Bob’s Burgers Proves a Mouthful for Subtitles Users
The wordiest animations have more words per minute than even the wordiest live-action dramas. Bob's Burgers (197 WPM) and Central Park (195) lead a handful of adult-oriented animations at the top of the table. Ironically, Loren Bouchard — the creator of both shows — cut his teeth with an ‘improvised’ animation that required him to remove most of the dialogue in post. “
We would go in and record an hour of random conversation,” says voice actor H. Jon Benjamin. “And Loren would take that and edit it down to a three-minute scene.”
The easiest animation subtitles to read tend to belong to child-oriented shows. But the easiest of them all is an exception: steampunk game adaptation Arcane runs at just 62 WPM, half the rate of The Simpsons. Arcane’s writers excel at encapsulating plot, character and theme in just a few carefully chosen words, such as “In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.”
Talking is Faster in the Universe of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and New Girl
The subtitles of Brooklyn Nine-Nine (206 WPM) and Always Sunny in Philadelphia (189 WPM) are the hardest to read of any leading sitcom.
Notably, New Girl (180 WPM) — which takes place in the same fictional universe as Brooklyn Nine-Nine — is also up in the top five. The top ten wordiest comedies have a higher average WPM (169) than any other TV drama. However, the ten fastest-talking influencers (see below) are even faster, clocking in at an average of 175 WPM.
The easiest comedy to follow through the subtitles is The White Lotus, with 84 WPM. Not a sitcom like most of the other comedies on our list, the satirical drama works with plot, atmosphere and imagery to build to comedic payoffs. With so many story strands to follow, back-to-back quickfire dialogue would soon become confusing and tiring for most audiences.
Big Green Lawyer is Wordiest TV Superhero
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law comes in at 123 WPM, making its subtitles the hardest to read among top superhero shows.
Of course, along with being a superhero show, it’s also a legal drama. And along with that snappy dialogue, there are She-Hulk’s fourth-wall-breaking asides to the camera to fill the silence.
In general, superhero shows prioritize action over words. Some 12 of the 19 series we analyzed had a subtitle rate lower than 100 WPM. Stargirl, one of the more child-friendly shows, is the second least wordy, at 77 WPM. But with 75 WPM, Moon Knight is the easiest to read of all — perhaps a relief for those who turn the sound down to avoid Oscar Isaac’s questionable London accent.
Code Geass Features Anime’s Toughest Subtitles
Anime has a rich visual language of its own, and two-thirds of the top animes have fewer than 100 words per minute.
The wordiest show in the genre, Code Geass, has a significantly higher WPM (143) than any other, with hero Lelouch/Zero known for weighty pronouncements: “When there is evil in this world that justice cannot defeat, would you taint your hands with evil to defeat evil? Or would you remain steadfast and righteous even if it means surrendering to evil?” With so much to take in, it's no wonder the English dub of Code Geass is considered one of the most essential anime dubs.
Code Geass has more than double the WPM of Dragon Ball Z (70 WPM) or Vinland Saga (66 WPM), the least wordy top animes. Viking revenge thriller Vinland Saga features sparse dialogue that all the same packs a punch — but if you’d rather keep your eyes free for the visuals, the show’s storied journey to Western TV screens has resulted in two different dubs to choose from.
One, by Sentai Filmworks, uses accurate Norse pronunciations (e.g., vee-kings), while Netflix’s dub prefers a phonetic reading (vai-kings).
Sci-Fi and Fantasy
Despite all the explaining you might think they need to do (and the sexposition they get up to), sci—fi and fantasy shows are generally thin on dialogue.
Among the top series, only Star Trek (105 WPM) and Doctor Who (104 WPM) hit triple figures. The latter has had UK and U.S. fans reaching for the closed captions, with complaints flowing in about “subpar sound mix” making the dialogue unintelligible in recent seasons.
It’s ironic that The Book of Boba Fett is the least wordy of TV’s top science fiction, or indeed any top TV series. Long-time Star Wars fans felt the titular hero spoke far too much, blowing the mystique that grew around him from the original trilogy. Boba Fett actor Temuera Morrison agreed: “I’m talking too much,” he told the NME. “This bubba doesn’t talk this much!”
The One Influencer Who Talks More Than MrBeast
Dead air is the big baddie in the creator community, and viewers need a lot of bang for their (attention) buck if they’re not to scroll on to the next video. Accordingly, the word rates of the top influencers are higher than those of TV fiction. Hasanabi (Hasan Piker) (189 WPM) and MrBeast (187 WPM) have the hardest subtitles to follow.
Piker is renowned for interrupting his marathon monologues to check information and converse with multiple viewers simultaneously. It is this level of engagement, say his peers, that has helped make him so popular.
Leading with fitness workout demonstrations, Michelle Lewin (93 WPM) is one of just two top influencers in our study whose videos feature fewer than 100 words per minute. Gaming streamer Caseoh (68 WPM) uses the fewest words of all. Setting the tone with a few gruff words, Caseoh lets his reactions — and the gaming footage — do the talking amidst a tense atmosphere of simmering rage.
The Age of Mumbling
Today’s screen acting methods and sound recording tech have fostered a mumblier style of dialogue that’s at odds with the way many people watch TV: while cooking, on the train, scrolling multiple devices or hanging with friends. It’s also at odds with home viewing set-ups, from tinny smartphone speakers to state-of-the-art TVs that have been made to look good at the expense of sound quality.
There’s no substitute for delivering a great sound mix along with the images. But to ensure your audience gets the message, it’s essential to take accessibility issues into account — and deliver usable subs and dubs, no matter how chatty your characters are.
Methodology and Sources
We first curated a seed list of the most popular shows across different categories (drama, animation, comedy, superhero, anime, sci-fi and fantasy) and then pulled subtitles for the 50 most recent episodes for each show.
We then tallied the word count across these episodes and divided it by the episode duration.
We repeated this process with a seed list of the most popular influencers/creators across YouTube, TikTok and Twitch, retrieving up to 50 of the latest video subtitles for each.
The data is correct as of January 2025.
