The shows that deserve a spot in listeners’ rotations
December 23, 2025, 9 AM ET
Editor’s Note: Find all of The Atlantic’s “Best of 2025” coverage here.
Podcasting has suffered a series of blows over the past few years: industry layoffs, the rise of AI-produced slop, and, perhaps most existentially, a growing focus on video platforms. But 2025 countered the narrative that the medium is somehow no longer interested in audio—with a slew of ambitious productions that emphasized podcasting, not just as a vehicle for comedy or the news, but as an art form in itself. These works aren’t the result of people simply talking into a microphone; they reflect deep thinking about how to blend sound design and scripting int…
The shows that deserve a spot in listeners’ rotations
December 23, 2025, 9 AM ET
Editor’s Note: Find all of The Atlantic’s “Best of 2025” coverage here.
Podcasting has suffered a series of blows over the past few years: industry layoffs, the rise of AI-produced slop, and, perhaps most existentially, a growing focus on video platforms. But 2025 countered the narrative that the medium is somehow no longer interested in audio—with a slew of ambitious productions that emphasized podcasting, not just as a vehicle for comedy or the news, but as an art form in itself. These works aren’t the result of people simply talking into a microphone; they reflect deep thinking about how to blend sound design and scripting into a deft aural affair. Among the year’s strongest shows was a travelogue that re-created the intimate sounds of an Antarctic expedition; an exploration of an Afrobeat legend’s life that captured the soulful cadence of his music; and an archivally rich deep dive into old Hollywood. More than anything, they reminded us that the listening experience isn’t going anywhere. (As with every year, The Atlantic’s podcasts were exempt from consideration.)
Jad Abumrad is something of a podcasting legend, having created influential shows such as Radiolab,* More Perfect*,* and Dolly Parton’s America. As such, any new program bearing his imprint carries high expectations. Fear No Man, which chronicles the life and legacy of the Afrobeat pioneer and political activist Fela Kuti, *easily exceeds them. Across a dozen episodes, the series contextualizes Kuti’s importance in post-colonial Nigeria—and beyond—without slipping into hagiography. Abumrad and his team manage to encompass the full spectrum of Kuti’s music—its blending of sonic traditions and narrative lyricism—through expressive sound design. At a moment when ambitious podcasts are hard to come by, the zealous fluidity of Fear No Man stands out.
Start with: “To Hell and Back”
Cramped, about living with debilitating period pain, is funny, educational, and at times enraging. The charming host, Kate Helen Downey, knows the subject intimately: She suffers from crippling dysmenorrhea and endometriosis. The personal connection propels her mission to humanize an experience shared by a large portion (90 percent) of all people who menstruate. She presents hard data and research, and interviews experts alongside guests who experience period pain. But the show’s greatest asset is its levity. Downey mixes things up with lively gags, such as menstruation-themed songs—making for a listen that’s provocative but never dispiriting.
Start with: “The ER: Why Isn’t Period Pain Treated Like Other Kinds of Pain?”
Podcasting as a medium isn’t particularly well set up for posterity: Much like the radio broadcasts that birthed the form, not every show is preserved for future listening. The Selects Podcast, from Radiotopia, is an attempt to build out an archive. Each episode resurfaces at least one segment from a forgotten or overlooked program. Highlights include an abstract documentary of a mother-daughter trip to Taiwan, an examination of war correspondents’ psyches, and a bygone public-radio show meant to promote reading. The overall package, which includes introductions by a producer on the show, Mitra Kaboli, is as close to a snapshot of audio storytelling’s past as anything else out there.
Start with: “The Sunshine Hotel”
In every installment of No Such Thing, three 30-something journalists and friends, Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, and Devan Joseph, consult experts to answer the questions that others may never think to ask: Why do headlights suddenly seem so much brighter? Should men sit when they pee? Are suburban dogs happier than city-dwelling ones? The show strikes a deft balance between a freewheeling hangout and a focused investigative program; the hosts’ natural rapport distinguishes No Such Thing from other similarly conceived podcasts. They have as much fun goofing off as they do pursuing their seemingly silly queries.
Start with: “Is Taylor Swift Bigger Than Michael Jackson?”
A Tiny Plot, from KQED’s Snap Studios, follows a collective of unhoused individuals in Oakland, California, who organize against their eviction from a public park—leading to a landmark co-governance agreement with the city that awards them a parcel of land. The program examines the hurdles the group must overcome: bureaucratic wrangling, protests against their encampment, and heart-rending choices when the proposed plot turns out to be near the site where one member’s son was murdered. The host, Shaina Shealy, tells a complex, sometimes raw story, resisting easy moralizing about the lives of her subjects.
Start with: “The Barricade”
This inventive program functions like an audio magazine. Each episode fits into a specific “section”—the editor’s note, essays, fiction, features, and poetry. The storytelling is thematically and formally rich, harkening back to the scrappy ethos of early public radio; the topics can be personal, philosophical, and even esoteric. Signal Hill’s release schedule—two biannual “issues,” collecting 10 or so segments from contributors of all experience levels—lends itself to a patient creative process; the individual pieces are sharp and exceptional. At a time when many current podcasts are leaning heavily into video, the work of Signal Hill’s cohort of independent audio producers* *feels not just novel but also urgent.
Start with: “Feature | A Porous Place”
The events of Charlie’s Place, set during the height of the Jim Crow era, have the makings of a true-crime-style drama: From the 1930s to the ’50s, a Black man named Charlie Fitzgerald ran a popular integrated night club in Myrtle Beach—to the grave consternation of the Ku Klux Klan. Yet the five-part series, named after Fitzgerald’s club, is more heartening than dour. The filmmaker Rhym Guissé paints a vibrant portrait of the folk hero’s life and the inclusive community that he built during a time of racial inequality. Guissé also blends on-the-ground reporting and archival audio to capture the harsh realities of life in segregated South Carolina and the way Fitzgerald moved between Black and white spaces with seeming ease. The story can’t avoid its tragic ending, but Charlie’s Place emphasizes the hope born from Fitzgerald’s act of defiance.
Start with: “Episode 1: Whispering Pines”
The question posed in the show’s title—more specifically, why has the actor Amy Adams appeared so frequently in bathtubs on-screen?—might sound simple. But to the culture reporters Brandon R. Reynolds and Gabby Lombardo, it makes for a curious trend. The hosts embark on a monomaniacal investigation, armed with an impressive amount of evidence to support their hypothesis that there’s a greater purpose to Adams’s penchant for the bathtub. Their quest to build a definitive profile of water’s role in filmmaking takes them in surprising directions, including to the Hollywood Walk of Fame; Waco, Texas; and the wellness-industrial complex of the new millennium. *Why Is Amy in the Bath? *is an inspired example of how podcasts can mine unexpected depth from even the most random premise.
Start with: “Episode 1: Why IS Amy in the Bath?”
A joint Canadian Australian production, Forged examines how two foundational Indigenous painters—Norval Morrisseau, known as “the Picasso of the North,” and Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri—became targets for large-scale, coordinated art-fraud operations. Morrisseau’s work, in particular, was the focus of what is believed to be the largest forgery ring of all time, in which several thousand fakes were illegitimately authenticated and sold around the world. But the host, Adrian Stimson, an artist from the Siksika Nation, carefully avoids true-crime sensationalism. Instead, he uses the fraud investigation as an entry point for a thoughtful rumination on First Peoples’ experiences in Canada and Australia and demonstrates how these thefts touch upon a greater legacy of colonialism and exploitation.
Start with: “A Painting”
The NPR series *Embedded *often produces riveting work, but this installment is especially notable. The miniseries, from the producer Zach Mack, focuses on his relationship with his father, a man so invested in conspiracy theories that he bets his son $10,000 that 10 of his most outlandish predictions will come true by the end of one calendar year. The father’s claims may leave listeners with little doubt as to who will win the money. But Mack’s real goal is to hash out their differences, insurmountable as they may seem. What follows is a consequential time in one family’s life, documented in a shockingly vulnerable fashion.
Start with: “Alternate Realities: A Strange Bet”
The story of a radical separatist group in West Texas in the ’90s that led to an armed-hostage standoff doesn’t seem like it would lend itself well to humor. But for her show, the host and producer Zoe Kurland took apparent inspiration from the idiosyncratic residents of the Davis Mountains Resort—also known as ground zero for the Republic of Texas movement, which formed under the belief that the United States had illegally annexed Texas in 1845. Kurland uses colorful firsthand accounts to detail the failed effort to establish Texas as an independent nation. Her familiarity with the area (the show is produced by the local Marfa Public Radio) helps her portray her subjects with empathy; she also smartly contextualizes the events within broader Texas mythology.
Start with: “The Standoff”
The name says it all: This delightful show recounts stories from the pre-civil-rights era in the vein of social pages and gossip columns. The producer, Nichole Hill, zeroes in on influential Black figures of that period as if they were modern-day celebrities, offering up juicy anecdotes from their dramatic personal lives drawn from contemporaneous newspaper accounts. Hill revels in the many romantic and social scandals of her subjects—including the author Zora Neale Hurston, the film pioneer Oscar Micheaux, and considerably more obscure characters—instead of just their careers, making for a livelier listen than your typical history podcast.
Start with: “Drs. Anna and Percy Julian: The Affair That Helped Birth the Pill”
A fresh take on two well-tapped genres, Debt Heads is a personal-finance journey in the guise of a narrative-investigative podcast. The series examines the credit-card industry’s hold on American life—a hefty topic that the hilarious co-hosts, the writers Jamie Feldman and Rachel Webster, turn on its head. Endeavoring to reduce shame about debt, the duo is boldly transparent: They discuss, for instance, Feldman’s own attempts to dig herself out from thousands of dollars of debt. They never wallow in the mire of their anxiety-inducing subject, maintaining a fast pace and a refreshing sense of humor.
Start with: “The Secret Life of Debt Heads”
This seemingly low-key music-appreciation show doubles as a debate program: The co-hosts—Craig Finn, the front man for the band the Hold Steady, and the podcasting veteran Jody Avirgan—seek to prove whether an album qualifies as “summer” or “winter.” In each episode, they argue their position on the correct vibe of a classic album, including Paul Simon’s *Graceland *and Pavement’s Slanted and Enchanted, to a guest. The pair’s guidelines for what makes a record fit each season are hazy (and often based on personal associations), but their passion and musical know-how help the conversation transcend what may seem like an argument about an arbitrary classification.
Start with: “Belle and Sebastian’s ‘If You’re Feeling Sinister’ With Jon Ronson”
Spotify canceled this long-running, celebrated series in 2023—a surprising move that felt, to many listeners, like an ill omen for narrative podcasting. Its revival might prompt a sigh of relief. This new season mostly sticks to the original premise—the host, Jonathan Goldstein, solves his guests’ unresolved gripes—but many of the episodes are themselves clear beneficiaries of the show’s hiatus. Certain installments cover a more ambitious time span, which the host attributes to the gap between seasons. Whether Goldstein is tracking down the victims of a bank robbery from more than 30 years ago or figuring out why a homecoming queen lost her title at the last minute, Heavyweight is both pleasantly familiar and invigorating; the two-year period away has only reaffirmed it as a standout listen.
Start with: “#64 Kevin”
The sociologist Ruth Braunstein examines the rise of Christian-nationalist ideology in American evangelicalism with striking intimacy. Her reporting takes her to Phoenix, where she captures the diametrically opposed approaches of two churches. The series finds an instructive case in one particular pastor, whose trajectory as a neo-Nazi skinhead turned vehement anti-racist makes for a compelling tale. In telling his story, Braunstein unpacks the ways individuals redefine themselves to fit their changing ideologies. The host’s aim isn’t polemical; instead, she makes the case that American democracy relies on disparate coalitions finding common ground.
Start with: “Rise of the MAGAchurch”
A production five years in the making, this travelogue* *follows Rachel Varnam on an expedition with the British Antarctic Survey during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. She recounts her monthslong journey on the high seas with a mix of interesting scientific detail, warm humor, and genuine wonder at the southernmost continent’s forbidding majesty. Listeners receive a crash course in the surprising complexities of polar medicine—Varnam serves as the crew’s doctor, nurse, and dentist all at once—as well as a taste of life aboard a sailing vessel bound for such remote territory. The show is the rare podcast set during 2020 that doesn’t inspire dread.
Start with: “We’re Very Nearly There”
Turner Classic Movies’s The Plot Thickens is a love letter to both old Hollywood and narrative audio. The show tracks the making of Elizabeth Taylor’s* Cleopatra* in 1963*, *one of the most expensive and difficult movie productions in cinematic history. The journalist and host Ben Mankiewicz grew up in the shadow of the picture—his great-uncle Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed it. His closeness to the story means that he has access to diary entries, recordings, and firsthand insights from family members that provide an emotional anchor to the account. Mankiewicz’s narration is husky and inviting, and his extensive use of archival tape creates a luxurious atmosphere—as if the tale is unspooling over martinis in the back room at the celebrated Hollywood hot spot Musso & Frank Grill.
Start with: “London Slog”
Morris has been one of podcasting’s most playful and erudite voices for more than a decade, and he has a talent for finding nuance across a broad spectrum of pop culture. Cannonball, his latest program for The New York Times, puts his critical expertise and omnivorous taste to good use as he analyzes the zeitgeist through a personal lens. A conversation about cover songs conjures memories of his hometown radio station; his doubts about Lady Gaga’s new album are upended after seeing her perform live. In a cultural environment that can often seem overwhelming, Morris is a deft, open-minded guide through the noise.
Start with: “Nikole Hannah-Jones Knows Why History Feels Dangerous”
More than a century after its sinking, is there really more to be said about the Titanic? Yes—and this immersive, exhaustive program from the Noiser Podcast Network aims to be as close to a definitive account of the ship as possible. *Ship of Dreams *details both the catastrophe and its legacy, beginning at a Belfast dry dock and ending with the OceanGate Titan submersible disaster, which happened en route to the Titanic’s seafloor resting place. Assuredly narrated by the actor Paul McGann, the series includes interviews with survivors, relatives of passengers, authors, and academics. (Also in the mix, somewhat unexpectedly, is the *Downton Abbey *creator Julian Fellowes, who adapted the Titanic story for TV.) The show’s thorough storytelling benefits from excellent scoring and sound design; this chronicle manages to be a gripping affair even if listeners already know how it ends.
Start with: “1. The Biggest Ship in the World
About the Author
Benjamin Cannon is a freelance writer who has been covering podcasting since 2014.
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