One writer's original short stories, each performed by one reader.
Ear-Movies is a home for original fiction by Simon Luckhurst, framed by his own short introductions and performed by one reader per story. Its fifth season, Remembering Tomorrow, takes climate change, artificial intelligence and social change into first-person stories about the people living through them.
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Ear-Movies hands each short story to one reader and lets it play out. The stories are original fiction by Simon Luckhurst, who writes and produces them and introduces them himself before the reader takes over. The fifth season, Remembering Tomorrow, gathers stories about climate change, artificial intelligence and technology, and social change. Luckhurst says he wanted to explore the future through the direct effect it might have on people, and the stories stick to that. They are narrated in the first person, which keeps large ideas at the scale of one life. 'Decision Time' is set against rising seas, violent storms and an increasingly controlling government. Its narrator recalls a group of friends who skip school to spend their days at a lookout, until a sudden act of violence breaks the scene apart. 'A Cautionary Tale' starts from research on heavy phone use and pushes further, toward an addiction that consumes its users entirely; in the story it arrives as a headset game shared between friends. 'GIGO.' takes its name from an old computing acronym, which the story explains, and it turns on AI, with a narrator pressing a man whose business had begun to thrive. 'Future Tense' brings a niece and her new boyfriend by skycar to her uncle's remote country house, where a secret is waiting. One exchange in it settles on AI-made films that have put old stars back on screen. The mood is not dark all the way through. Luckhurst wrote 'Long Shot' because he wanted something with optimism in it, and set it in a small outback town where a mysterious stranger arrives. In one passage a woman at a sandy shrine reads aloud about choices and the old instruction to know thyself. The readers are a big part of the draw. Lola Bond, Steph Dawson, Geoff Morrell, Noel Hodder and Daniel Henschel each carry a story, and the introductions run through the longer screen credits among them. The closing credits follow a set pattern, naming the reader, the studio and the land the recording was made on, from Gadigal Land and Dharawal land to Algonquin lands in New York City. Trevor Brown is credited with the theme music. One episode steps outside the fiction. 'Simon Luckhurst interview with Jake Cupitt' is a radio conversation from ABC Illawarra, where the show is pitched as something between a radio play and a film. Luckhurst explains how Steph Dawson, whom he met at university in Wollongong, came to read for him. Only half seriously, he calls his set-up perhaps the worst podcast model going, since he has to write and edit the episodes himself.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants one finished piece of fiction per episode, read aloud by a single performer, and who likes near-future stories about climate, AI and technology told from inside one person's life.
What sets it apart: All the stories come from one writer, Simon Luckhurst, who often opens by naming the real-world concern behind a story and then hands it to a single reader, frequently an actor with long screen credits. Even the closing credits are distinctive, naming the land each recording was made on.
Movies for your ears - long short stories just under an hour. Forget the commentary, chat and crime. Funny, insightful, moving. Award winning.
A skycar lands at your uncle's farm; your family drama suddenly seems quaint.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A promise of easier living becomes a closed-room test of captivity, freedom, and machine-made care.
Nesting Instincts turns a promise of easier living into a quiet study of captivity. A user who cannot mark the walls, choose the food, or measure how long confinement has lasted gives the episode its tight, uneasy frame.
A skycar visit stirs AI cinema, old grief, and the cost of letting the future into an ordinary afternoon.
Future Tense turns a niece's country visit into a quiet clash between an uncle's settled habits and a future already arriving at the door. Kelly and her new boyfriend, Pete, reach his remote house after their skycar lands, and his unease is not just old-fashioned resistance.
A dusty outback story where comic wind, private uncertainty, and a difficult choice gather around an unlikely bond.
Long Shot finds its shape in a small outback town where the wind seems to speak, dust keeps undercutting the mood, and a mysterious stranger raises a bruising question about choice.
A quiet ghost story where scientific doubt, old grief, and romantic possibility leave one mystery deliberately unsettled.
Collateral Damage makes scientific method feel quietly unstable, following a biologist as she looks back on university, an unresolved mystery, and the ache left by Mary's absence.
A seductive headset turns digital escape into a tense warning about losing control.
A Cautionary Tale works best as a compact science-fiction warning built around a sharply familiar temptation: Varix headsets that make digital escape feel cheaper, stronger, and harder to resist than the drugs the narrator invokes.
Dice, divine mysteries, and the trouble with good intentions.
Ear-Movies’ “Decision Time,” read by Lola Bond, follows a 14-year-old girl displaced from North Bondi after climate-driven storms, rising seas and government resettlement destroy her family’s home.
Ear-Movies’ “GIGO” follows investigator questioning convicted PR operator Gary Pink about how AI transformed Pink Pros from a small firm into a 100-client business.
["Ear-Movies' A Cautionary Tale describes Varix as a headset system \"more addictive\" and \"more lethal\" than morphine, heroin, oxy, or fentanyl.", "The narrator connects that device to an alcoholic father, repeated moves, school bullying, and the first real friendships with Mel and Adrian Andrews.", "Once Varix links to browsing history and biometric sensors, the story moves through Jason Momoa in a canoe, the \"Power\" upgrade, and the day world versus headset world split.", "Steph Dawson reads the piece, Simon Lockhurst is credited as writer-producer, and Trevor Brown composed the theme music recorded in Steph Dawson's home studio on Algonquin lands in New York City."]
["Ear Movies' 'Future Tense' is a near-future family dinner story set on a farm near Bathurst.", "Nol Hodder reads the episode, and the credits name Simon Lockhurst as writer and producer.", "Roger's visit from Kelly and her boyfriend Pete turns into arguments about universal basic income, legal drugs, skycars, and robot nurses.", "The story keeps folding in horse memories, AI movies, climate diamonds, and a 1974 XP Falcon Interceptor as Roger tries to hold onto the old world."]
Ear Movies' "Long Shot" follows a dust-choked outback town after Lee Fang steps off a Greyhound with one large suitcase and two smaller ones.
Ear-Movies' 'Nesting Instincts' follows a narrator in a hot, locked room who tracks time by tepid showers, oatmeal, and a window too high to see through.
Ear-Movies's "Collateral Damage" follows a biologist who takes odd paid jobs as a ghost sitter for Mrs.
Ear-Movies’ “A Few Lines About Trains” turns a stopped train into a story about five passengers, one apple, and unexplained events.
Ear-Movies' "Roadkill" is a first-person Australian short story read by Travis Spiteri, set in Collie, where a car-less narrator joins a pub gang led by the 'big bloke' Tonk.
A narrated short story about a man reflecting on an old friend from university, blending philosophy with storytelling.
A fictional murder mystery set at the Sydney Opera House, where an elderly detective investigates the impossible death of a music icon.
The host introduces Season 2 of Ear-Movies, explaining the concept of standalone long short stories and the inspiration behind the new episode 'Olympus'.
The host introduces a fictional story about a talking horse in World War I, sharing the writing and casting process.