Press Ctrl + L to load a subtitle file manually, or drag and drop the .srt file directly onto the player window while the movie is running.

If the subtitles show weird symbols, the "Encoding" is likely wrong. Open the .srt in Notepad, click Save As , and change the encoding at the bottom to UTF-8 before saving.

Simply play the video; VLC should load the matched .srt automatically. If it doesn't, right-click the video window, go to Subtitle > Add Subtitle File , and select your file.