Subtitles are another device the promo clip has borrowed from film, originally used to facilitate the acceptance of international cinema in Britain and America (and of English-language films in Europe and beyond), and also as a source of dialogue in early silent film. In the 1990, subtitles are often considered "artistic", or offer the viewer additional information that is not available through the visual, musical or lyrical narratives. Two videos that use subtitles to great effect, though treat them differently, are REM's "Everybody Hurts" (1993) and Radiohead's Just (1995). The main advantage of subtitles is that they allow the visual narrative to continue independently of the musical narrative. This means that the visuals can work regardless of the choice of soundtrack, as was the case with silent film, but the technique has been adapted to suit pop video. Radiohead's "Just" was directed by an art student, his first commercial film project.

The promo video makes use of subtitles as a narrative tool, and tells the story of a middle-aged man who decides to lie down in the middle of the street. Another man trips over him, and after shouting at him, asks why he is lying on the pavement. He refuses to say, and, gradually, a crowd gathers around him, culminating in a police officer ordering the man to get up. As things come to a head, the music builds up to a climax and the man tells the crowd why he is actually lying on the pavement. At this point the subtitles disappear and the camera moves to show the faces of the crowd, so the viewer never learns why he is lying on the pavement. The video ends with an aerial shot of the entire crowd lying on the pavement next to the man.

Though this film could work on its own merits, it has been adopted for use as a promo video. From the opening few scenes the main story is interspersed with footage of Radiohead "performing" the song in a room in an apartment block, with lead singer Thom Yorke looking out of the window onto the incident down below. Though the band have little to do with the visual narrative, they seem to be included in the video both to remind the viewer that it is a pop video we are watching, and that the main function of the video is to promote Radiohead, their single and the accompanying album.

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