The Story of Listening
Listening follows a group of ambitious graduate students who've achieved something remarkable: they've built a working telepathy device. But breakthrough comes with a price. A shadowy covert operation—backed by corporate interests and government power—discovers their invention and sees not a marvel of human ingenuity but a weapon. The students find themselves trapped in a psychological war, pitted against each other as unseen forces weaponize their creation against them. What starts as a celebration of scientific achievement becomes a nightmare about privacy, control, and the boundaries of what technology should be allowed to do to the human mind.
The film's central tension isn't just about the device itself. It's about what happens when you can read someone's thoughts—when the last fortress of human autonomy, the interior life, becomes exploitable real estate. The students didn't invent this to hurt people. They were chasing knowledge. But knowledge, once weaponized, doesn't care about intentions.
Behind the Making of Listening
Director Khalil Sullins brought Listening to the screen in 2015 as an independent production, a collaboration between the United States and Cambodia. The film runs 97 minutes and carries no MPAA rating, giving Sullins freedom to explore its darker themes without studio constraints. The ensemble cast includes Thomas Stroppel, Artie Ahr, Amber Marie Bollinger, Christine Haeberman, Steve Hanks, and Buddy Daniels Friedman—a mix of emerging and established actors navigating the moral quicksand the script throws at them.
The production itself reflects the film's themes about scrappy innovation meeting institutional power. Working outside the studio system, Sullins crafted a project that prioritizes ideas over spectacle, which is both its strength and, for some viewers, its limitation. The film earned 2 wins and 4 nominations at various festivals, gaining recognition for its ambitious premise even if mainstream critical consensus proved lukewarm. Metascore rated it 35/100, and Rotten Tomatoes landed it at 17% (Rotten), while IMDb users gave it 5.6/10 from over 3,000 votes—the kind of mixed reception that often signals a film asking harder questions than audiences came prepared to answer.
What's worth noting is that Sullins didn't have a massive budget or A-list names to lean on. He had an idea about power, privacy, and what we owe each other in an age of invasive technology. That's often enough for a filmmaker willing to take risks.
What Makes Listening Stand Out
The thing nobody mentions about Listening is how prescient it feels. Made in 2015, before the full weight of data-harvesting and surveillance capitalism became dinner-table conversation, the film was already asking: what if someone could read your mind? Not metaphorically. Literally. It's a thought experiment that cuts straight to the bone of modern anxiety—the loss of privacy, the weaponization of information, the way institutions can turn personal data into leverage.
The performances don't always hit the same register. Some moments feel stilted; others crackle with genuine tension. But that unevenness works in the film's favor, honestly. It mirrors the students' own confusion and fear—they're not action heroes or seasoned operatives. They're smart people out of their depth, watching their creation turn into something they can't control. That's more unsettling than any polished thriller could be.
I keep coming back to how the film treats telepathy not as wish-fulfillment fantasy but as existential horror. You can't unknow what you've learned about someone's inner thoughts. You can't unhear their private doubts, their hidden resentments, the ugly stuff we all carry but never speak. Sullins understood that reading minds isn't a superpower—it's a violation. The device doesn't liberate the students. It imprisons them in knowledge they never wanted.
The thriller elements—the cat-and-mouse games, the betrayals, the corporate conspiracy—serve the larger philosophical argument about autonomy and consent. What's striking is that the film doesn't let anyone off the hook. The students aren't purely innocent victims, and the antagonists aren't cartoonish villains. Everyone's caught in a system larger than themselves, making compromises, crossing lines they swore they wouldn't cross.
Where to Stream Listening Online
Listening is currently available on Prime Video, where you can stream it on-demand. If you're hunting for where to watch it, Movie OTT tracks current availability across major platforms and can tell you exactly which services carry this title in your region. The streaming landscape shifts constantly—what's available today might move tomorrow—so checking a platform aggregator before you hit play saves frustration. Prime Video's catalog includes a lot of indie sci-fi and thriller fare, and Listening fits that niche well for viewers looking for something cerebral and unsettling rather than purely entertaining.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Who directed Listening?
Khalil Sullins directed the film in 2015. It's an independent production that reflects his ambitions as a filmmaker to explore high-concept sci-fi ideas with limited resources.
Q: What's the runtime of Listening?
Listening runs 97 minutes, a tight enough length to maintain tension without feeling stretched.
Q: Is Listening based on a true story?
No, it's an original fictional premise about a telepathy device and corporate conspiracy. The film uses science fiction as a vehicle to explore real anxieties about privacy, surveillance, and technological power.
Q: What rating does Listening have?
The film is not rated by the MPAA, which gave the filmmakers freedom to explore darker themes without studio restrictions.
Q: How was Listening received by critics?
Critical reception was mixed. Rotten Tomatoes gave it 17% (Rotten), Metascore rated it 35/100, and IMDb users averaged 5.6/10. Despite this, the film won 2 awards and earned 4 nominations at festivals for its ambitious concept.
Final Thoughts on Listening
Listening isn't a perfect film. It's uneven, sometimes clumsy, occasionally derivative. But it's also genuinely unsettling in ways that polished studio thrillers rarely manage. It asks uncomfortable questions about technology, power, and the sanctity of thought—questions that've only gotten more urgent since 2015. If you're drawn to sci-fi that prioritizes ideas over action, or if you're curious about how independent filmmakers tackle big concepts on modest budgets, Listening deserves your time. It won't be everyone's cup of tea. But it'll stay with you.
