eg Brad Pritt in Snatch 
I thought it was going to be this video - sub-titles!
The worst trouble I’ve had being understood was in Chicago - how do I say this politically correctly - the people with the really urban accents couldn’t understand me. My husband says my accent is that I enunciate clearly. I was wondering by the time we left if I would be understood better if I slurred more. 
Well, then there’s this…
(many of you have heard it before)
I needed subtitles for Trainspotting.
There was a scene in Chicken Run, where Mel Gibson as the American rooster (ironic, given that he’s Australian) gets chewed out by the Scottish hen. Afterward he asks one of the other hens, “Was that English?”
Maybe. I think I do something similar. I’m in Southern California and speak very little Spanish, among a population that almost homogeneously knows at least two languages, Spanish and English. I have grown up hearing Spanish, took a few classes, but just can’t remember it really, though, so…when I try to say something in Spanish, or actually HEAR a word I’ve seen before but didn’t know it sounded like THAT, I try to repeat it quickly and smoothly…and invariably get it just…a little…wrong. I do much better just going slower, even though I sound like a noob either way.
Trying to sound ‘natural’ just sounds…wrong, apparantly, when you really don’t know what the hell you’re doing. Who’da thunk. 
Well, that sure is weird. I think I heard a ‘freezing cold’ and a couple of 'alright’s, in there. It’s actually kind of like listening to someone speak Old English, where you think you can maybe understand some of it, but not quite.
Two interesting facts:
Mel Gibson is not Australian, he just lived here for a good length of his life.
The scottish chicken is voiced by Craig Ferguson’s sister Lynn.
I know some Americans have a heck of a time with British accents. I recently listened to a couple of coworkers talk about how they didn’t enjoy the new Sherlock Holmes movie because they couldn’t understand the dialogue. As for me, 10 minutes into the movie I forgot they were even speaking with British accents. (Of course given the nationality of most of the cast, perhaps they weren’t.)
I’ve never had any trouble with received pronunciation, or what used to be called BBC English. That probably has something to do with growing up on Monty Python, Red Dwarf, Fawlty Towers, Yes Minister, etc. And I’m still fine with historical dramas and comedies. But modern, contemporary dramas lose me sometimes. I caught the pilot of Being Human just recently. I had no trouble understanding vampire boy, barely got a word of what ghost girl was saying, and the werewolf was kind of hit and miss. He had one monologue where I had to rely almost entirely on his facial expression and a few key words to figure out what he was saying. They were some great words too. I’m sorry I couldn’t make out whole sentences.
Even BBC Radio seems to have a lot more accents or ways of speaking that to my ear are kind of loose, mushy, and inarticulate compared to the crisp and precise language that used to dominate. That may sound more judgmental than I mean it to be, but I can’t think of how else to describe them.
I once had the misfortune of taking a bus from Athens to Munich - and as if that isn’t bad enough, about half the bus was British and the other half Irish - they once had to stop the bus due to a fight that broke out when some Irish guy started singing a song I couldn’t understand, but the song mightily pissed off the Brits. To make matters worse, I was sitting in the back with an Irish country girl and her Scottish boyfriend…she had to translate his English to me, and he was pissed off that I couldn’t understand him as he could understand me.
On one of my first visits to London, I saw a chain of bookstores and couldn’t figure out how to pronounce the name - so when I returned to Berlin I asked two British teachers I worked with how to pronounce the name of this bookshop; whsmith
“Do you say Wazmith? Wihsmith?”
They looked at me oddly and one said, “We pronounce it W. H. Smith.”
Never dawned on me that it was simply spelled without punctuation.
Now* that’s* funny.
Heck, even BBC America has that little ad in front of some programs telling you to how to turn on your closed captioning. I even saw it in front of Doctor Who!
The first time I saw The Full Monty, it took a few minutes for my ear to get attuned, and even then, I got lost with certain slang or idioms or something. I understood the words, but not when they were strung together.
Most of the time, though, my problem is with people who mumble or just speak too softly, regardless of the language. There are times I can’t understand my own daughter!
There’s a reader/reporter on the BBC World Service whose voice I really like, Lyse Doucet. I’ve never heard an accent quite like it. Wikipedia says she’s from New Brunswick, Canada.
Are you kidding? My husband and I watched the DVDs of “Life on Mars” recently and even after hearing the words and seeing the subtitles we still had no idea what the characters were saying.
An example (made up): “You and the plonk move the noddy kip and Bob’s your uncle, guv.” Whaaaa??? I think it’s English; you tell me.
Pfft. For a wonderful counterexample I give the incomprehensible Emma Watson, who can be understood about 1 line in 3 from the third HP movie onward.
Seriously, I had to turn on the subtitles!
Translation: This here bloke 'n meself’ll will up right ho, eh? And then Bjorn Stronginthearm’s yer uncle, soir.
Out of curiosity, can the Americans here understand the lyrics in this song?
Out of further curiosity, can the southern Englanders understand it also? 
It’s weird because I understand Colm Meany perfectly fine in Star Trek and Under Siege but I’ll be danged if I understand every 3rd word he spoke in The Commitments.
Slight highjack: Colm Meany was in another movie that I needed subtitles to understand. He played the father to an unwed young daughter who refused to tell who the father was. Does anyone remember this and know the name?
I could not understand almost anything anyone said in Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. Mind you, I did get the gist of these parts.
What was their accent by the way?
Mostly cockney (working class Londoner), but there were a couple of scousers if I remember correctly. (Scouse is the Liverpool accent).