This post and the comments gives me hope.

I am relatively new to being legally blind. In my other life I was a photographer, so I lived largely in the visual world.

Movies were one of my favorite things, and I would get lost in the cinemetography, lighting ... and all the visuals of the locations.

I do enjoy movies with audio descriptions, but I love the idea of taking this further and learning to become immersed in the sound as well. I paid attention to sound before, of course, but learning to use it as a cinematic guide will be a new life skill to master.

I have had an obsession with old time radio shows since I was a kid. Some are fantastic, even today. Others are just campy fun.
But they all organically narrates itself. Just through dialog.
There are several free apps that offer thousands of hours of old radio shows...some "whole" movies even, though condensed for radio.
Still, though, they're great. So much fun. Even if my vision wasn't in a woeful state of decline, I'd still enjoy those radio shows.

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I'm a big fan of Star Trek myself. They put a lot of effort into the sound work, to the point that you can still know what's going on most of the time without actually seeing what's happening on screen.

Makes sense. When the show originated, they didn't have crazy CG effects. All they had to sell you that water pistol was a "phaser" was the sound effects. The set is only a starship deck with the sounds of footsteps on metal and the whoosh of doors.

That tradition of sound effects carried forward to more modern Treks.

A lot of episodes, especially in Deep Space Nine, are also very dialogue heavy. At that point the visuals become inconsequential.

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I wouldn't say it's impossible, but the experience is way more exausting when you have to guess everything. And there's the looks and other visual information we can't get anything off at all without audiodescription.

Totally blind here, and I completely agree.

Okay, but wouldn't you say your experience would have been improved by audio description? I watched the Color of Money recently, which doesn't have AD but I was able to follow along well enough. That being said, I know I definitely missed some stuff because of the lack of description. With as much programming that has closed captioning, I think there should be an equal amount of AD content, but there isn't.

I often find watching a movie after I've read the book helps, although of course it often spoils things.
The Martian is a great example of an easy to follow film after having consumed the book, which came out first so I'd already read it.

I tend to agree and will note that certain genres are easier to follow if you cannot see the screen. Dramas focus on delivering a well-rounded narrative, so writers pay attention to dialogue. Star Trek, a new favorite, is fundamentally a science fiction drama . Procedurals may have bland dialogue, but the sequence of a detective plot follows a set pattern. Situational comedies offer a mix of both verbal and physical humor, and the good ones, like Frasier, have a dazzling amount of wit. I appreciate audio description for action/adventure, thriller, physical comedy, and silent film/classic cartoon genres. Nowadays, I watch a combination of old and new material most of the time without any audio description.

I frequently just listen to shows on Netflix and for most things, you can keep track of what's happening 90% of the time anyway.

I agree. For the bigger part of my life, I had to watch stuff without description, since it’s simply wasn’t available for me, and my knowledge of the English language was not good enough at that time.
Even today, you can still watch shows without description. Sitcoms for example. Or all those crime proceed rules like CSI, or navy CIS.
But, especially all those bigger shows like “ Game of Thrones” or “ The Walking Dead” are difficult to follow, without description.

Even if you're not blind, there are some movies you should give a go and to just listen to. Avatar is one of those, in my opinion, where the music beautifully follows the wonderous feelings of adventure and discovery, or the harsh emotional moments of loss. It's almost like an audiobook!