History Main / ReadingLips

* Occasional [[Comicbook/TheAvengers Avenger]] Echo can read lips as part of the implication that she's a deaf counterpart to Comicbook/{{Daredevil}}. However, the realistic limitations of this skill are still explored, since she has trouble communicating with heroes whose costumes cover their mouths like Comicbook/SpiderMan or Comicbook/IronMan, and she obviously can't respond to someone if her back is to them and she doesn't know they're talking.
* In ''Comicbook/AvengersAcademy'' #1, Finesse reads Speedball's lips and learns that [[spoiler: the students are there because they are the most likely to become supervillains]].

* In ''ComicBook/Hawkeye2012'', Hawkeye (who was deaf as a child) loses his hearing again and is shown reading lips. Is a bit TruthInTelevision since it shows blanks on words he cannot fully read and him guessing words based off context.
* In the third and final part of ''ComicBook/TheSupergirlSaga'', when Pocket Universe Lex Luthor's resistance team has been nearly wiped out along with the people left in Smallville, Lex Luthor communicates to Franchise/{{Superman}} what he wants the hero to do by reading his lips so that the Phantom Zone criminals would not find out. [[spoiler:Lex wants Superman to find Superboy's secret lab and use the Green and Gold Kryptonite to put an end to the criminals' threat once and for all.]]
* Comicbook/{{Superman}} used a viewer that gathers "light rays" to see past. As it's all light, superman had to use lipreading to see what was spoken. There was some oddities like blank talk bubbles from some people facing away from viewpoint. How would he know those people were speaking in first place?

* ''Manga/SpyXFamily'': In Chapter 70, Anya, who used her {{Telepathy}} to find out [[spoiler:where the kidnappers on her class' bus are taking them]], tells her friend Becky she is able to read lips to figure out that information.

-->-- ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', "Lemon of Troy"

* ''Manga/{{Gangsta}}'' features the deaf mercenary Nicolas, [[DisabilitySuperpower who can use his lip reading skills to understand what his targets are saying from a mile away.]]
* ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'': in one episode, a Tachikoma reads the lips of the Major and Batou as a ShoutOut to ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey''. Subverted because they know they're being watched and have their conversation via wireless communication with their cyberbrains and have a fake conversation for the Tachikoma to lip read [[spoiler: leaving them falsely reassured that The Major was merely chewing Bateau out for being too much of a DrillSergeantNasty and the Tachikoma weren't being decommissioned]].

* In the Creator/MattFraction ComicBook/{{Hawkeye}}, Hawkeye who was deaf as a child loses his hearing again and is shown reading lips. Is a bit TruthInTelevision since it shows blanks on words he cannot fully read and him guessing words based off context.

%%* In one [=WW2=] prisoner of war novel, the protagonist is warned that some of the German guards have lipreading skills.
* During ''Literature/TheNewRebellion'' both Luke and Leia prove to be able to do this.
* In ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear'', Tash tries her best to make Zak understand that they're inside a biological weapons plant, but even when she mouths it slowly, he doesn't get it.
* The titular character of ''Literature/HarryPotter'' regularly does it. However, the lines he "read" are often the most obvious and logical in the given situation, so he may just predicting what the other person will say instead of actually reading the lips.

* Literature/MikeHammer keeps bumping into a deaf man outside police headquarters, and eventually works out he's being used to pass on information on impending raids from a DirtyCop who's under surveillance; the cop would pretend to be chewing gum while actually be mouthing the location of their next target.

* Pied Piper from ''Literature/DCSuperHeroGirls'' is deaf and can read lips fluently in several languages. Rumor has it that he's been used as a government spy.
* ''Literature/DoubleStar'' by Creator/RobertAHeinlein. Two spacemen retire to a 'hush corner' of the hotel room to discuss the protagonist. The hush corner cancels out their voices, but as he's a stage performer he's learned to lipread as part of his trade.
* In Heinlein's ''Literature/PodkayneOfMars'', the title character and her younger brother have been kidnapped. Suspecting their captor might be bugging the room they're in, they plan their escape this way ([[FridgeLogic though that doesn't explain how their 'conversation' is recorded on Podkayne's diary recorder]]).
* ''Literature/HoshiAndTheRedCityCircuit'': When Hoshi was first starting out as a private detective, she bought an expensive lipreading program for her [[BrainComputerInterface navis]]. It comes in handy when she's spying on people through sensorcams with no sound.

* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode "Under the Lake" features ghostly apparitions which appear to be silently speaking. Cass, one of the people trapped by the manifestation, is deaf, and is able to read their lips. It is shown not to be perfectly easy, with some words taking her several attempts to figure out.

* ''Series/{{Monk}}'':
** One episode involved a murderer who could read lips, which is how he managed to "eavesdrop" on a trader in a building from afar.
** EpicFail version in ''Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse'': when Natalie talks to firefighter Joe Cochran about the death of Cochran's dog Sparky, Monk stays back because Cochran is feeding some cats and he has allergies. He says he can lip-read, but when he is asked if he got everything, what he claims to have heard is nothing like the conversation.

[[folder: Real Life]]

* There's a chapter devoted to Hayate trying to eavesdrop on Saki during an arranged marriage meeting in ''Manga/HayateTheCombatButler.'' Even as good as Hayate is at most things, [[SubvertedTrope he can't actually read the conversation nearly as well as he thinks.]] His attempts to interpret what's going on end in disaster.

* ''Manga/SoulEater'': Justin Law can read lips, which is good considering he has ear phones on most of the time...but he can't understand Shinigami (without removing his earphones), thanks to his mask.

* In ''Literature/TheFamousFive'' book ''Five go to Smuggler's Top'', the children suspect that the deaf servant Block can read their lips. [[spoiler: He is not deaf at all.]]

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[[folder: Western Animation]]
* Franchise/{{Batman}} does this in the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode ''Shadow of the Bat''.