The VideoLAN Forums

Currently, VLC displays videos in the wrong orientation when they were taken with a rotated smartphone. This is a big problem because many smartphone users record videos with the phone in a portrait orientation. The rotation EXIF tag exists with the purpose of allowing the video player to display the video in the correct orientation. VLC should read the video's rotation EXIF tag and rotate the video display if it was taken with the phone rotated. The code for rotation already exists within the Transform effect, it just needs to apply it based on the EXIF tag.

I think this feature is pretty important. It's really inconvenient when you open a video that was taken with a smartphone and it displays sideways or upside down.

Try VLC-2.2.0 from http://nightlies.videolan.org/

This still doesn't work for me in VLC 3.0.20 running under Windows 10 22H2. VLC consistently plays smartphone videos in portrait orientation, including those recorded in landscape orientation. This is true both for videos recorded on an iPhone and for those recorded on a Samsung Galaxy. The videos in question play in the correct orientation in:
• MS Films & TV
• IrfanView
• Media Player
• Photos
• Windows Media Player
• XnView MP

Please upload a short sample of your original problematic file to WeTransfer.com or Disroot.org and then post the link to the file here.
https://wetransfer.com
https://upload.disroot.org