The 20 best podcasts of 2025 | Podcasts

20

Chef Samin Nosrat – author of the cult cookbook Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat – and Song Exploder supremo Hrishikesh Hirway revived their pandemic-era food podcast this year, and it was truly scrumptious. This warm hug of a show – propelled by the clear chemistry between the two friends – centred the communal and cultural power of food, drawing on its hosts’ diverse tastes and respective Iranian and Indian heritage. All that, while also answering listeners’ kitchen dilemmas (among them: what do you do when your partner has a pathological fear of white sauces, from mayonnaise to sour cream?).

19

The Observer’s Chloe Hadjimatheou has had a big year, thanks in part to her investigation into questions around the honesty of the author of the bestselling memoir The Salt Path. Over in the podcast world, she’s had another success, too: this dark and gripping four-part series about a schoolboy groomed by a female teacher in her late 20s. Lucky Boy swerves any temptation towards the salacious, instead focusing on the vulnerable (and sometimes seething) testimony of Gareth – now in his 50s – whose life was devastated both by the actions of his teacher and the inaction of other school staff.

18

In one of the most riveting opening podcast episodes ever, Monica Lewinsky was her own first guest. “There’s no field guide to surviving a scandal,” she said, before a brutally candid hour recounting her affair with Bill Clinton. It was a powerful start to a ballsy series about reclaiming what a person has lost (in the broadest sense). Since then, Lewinsky has proved a great host in meaty chats with guests including Amanda Knox, Margaret Cho, Ronan Farrow, Allison Janney, Elizabeth Gilbert and Kesha.

17

Millennials had a hoot with this rollicking podcast about the messy indie sleaze era. Curiously, the term wasn’t coined until more than 20 years after the Strokes kicked off the scene with their dirty Converse. But host Kate Nash captures the unmistakable guitar riffs, skinny jeans and arrogant energy of the time. It’s a nostalgic bop-fest with sounds from the likes of the Long Blondes, Bloc Party, Arctic Monkeys and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, along with outrageous stories of the time told by the Cribs, the Libertines, Razorlight and Art Brut (Nash is very aware of the male-heavy roster – a symptom of the times). This might make you feel old as hell, or like a 17-year-old having the time of their life on a dirty dancefloor again.

16

The 2001 anthrax crisis in the US has lost some of its sting in the years since, slipping into the footnotes of the post-9/11 “war on terror”. Hosted by Jeremiah Crowell, CBC’s podcast expertly reopened this disquieting chapter of American history, teleporting us back to the time when poisonous white powder began appearing in the mail, and asking whether the authorities ever truly solved the case. As well as zooming in on the blockbuster parts of the tale (FBI raids, suspicious scientists), it also considered the human casualties of this lethal act of bioterrorism.

15

There is no naughtier sound than Graham Norton and Maria McErlane uncontrollably cackling together. The wickedly funny pair have been mates for three decades and first started solving listener dilemmas on Norton’s Radio 2 show 13 years ago. By popular demand, they’re back at it with this agony-aunt podcast, delving into everything from wedding-invite snubs and naked in-laws to what tote bag to take to the supermarket and holiday flings. But aside from the honest advice, it’s a joy to just hear Graham and Maria catching up (and often squabbling) over tea and biscuits as all great friends should.

14

Not content with her role in one of the best TV moments of the year (being bumped off by her best mate Alan Carr on The Celebrity Traitors, then leaving in a coffin), Paloma Faith also presented one of the year’s best pods. Running counter to the usual breezy tone of most celeb-on-celeb interview shows, Mad, Sad and Bad invites guests to reflect on the more challenging times of their lives, alongside an ever-disarming host. The result is bracingly honest, from Jamie Laing unpicking his people-pleasing past, to writer Afua Hirsch illustrating the prejudice she experienced while working in television.

13

Money remains, for many of us, a deeply taboo subject – ironic, really, as speaking about it can educate us on how to save more of it, or remove some of the stigma of debt. Enter What We Spend, where Courtney Harrell scratches our nosy itch while also guiding us through the fiscal habits of a glut of ordinary Americans, complete with spending diaries of their daily lives. For some, there’s guilt – “should I ask my parents for more money for my wedding?” – while others, like a truck driver living in her vehicle, are just trying to survive.

12

This astonishingly detailed look at a musician whose story is far too little known in the west began with a flurry of impossibly starry endorsements (Obama! McCartney! Jay-Z!). And in nigh-on every episode there was at least one astonishing vignette – think Kuti’s mother’s nudity-assisted overthrow of a colonial governor, how he defied the Nigerian authorities by refusing to defecate for three days while in a prison cell, or the tragic recounting of a violent army raid on his family. Creator Jad Abumrad’s in-depth interviews and passionate explanation of the power of Kuti’s music created not just an immersive account of why Kuti’s name should be writ large in international history books, but quite probably the best music podcast of 2025.

11

He claims to have made so many bad life decisions that his main skill as an agony uncle is to act as a living guide to how not to do things. He promises not to say anything profound. He insists on starting the show by warning listeners that it is simply a way to waste their time. And to a certain extent, he’s right: this series of responses to reader questions washes over you so delightfully that it makes half an hour evaporate. But, despite the protestations, once you’ve spent time with his charming anecdotes, languidly delivered opinions and hilariously quirky takes on how to approach life, it’s impossible not to feel that you’re in the presence of wisdom. An absolutely delightful listen.

10

The termination of And Just Like That! South Park’s takedown of Donald Trump! Lady Gaga’s triumphant return! After Still Processing, his hit podcast with co-host Jenna Wortham, New York Times critic Wesley Morris cannonballed into the culture pool solo with this lively, accessible series – and he had plenty to dig into with a top roster of guests each week. There were wider and more personal debates, too, from the changing role of music critics to the most formative summer films, and the deeper meaning behind being a Bruno Mars fan. A cracking weekly culture fix.

9

One of Britain’s best-loved comics, Katherine Ryan has become a major podcast player of late, too. What’s My Age Again? could have been car-crash territory, a show that invites celebrities to undergo a biological age test that tells them how old they really are, before branding them as decrepit. Luckily, it’s been a more sensitive affair, opening up all manner of intriguing conversations – from Joanne McNally on being an adoptee to Michelle de Swarte’s memories of her matriarchal upbringing.

8

America’s stand-your-ground self-defence laws are at the heart of this Wall Street Journal miniseries, which begins with an agitated 911 call from a motorist, reporting an apparent road rage incident. The man on the phone, Weldon Boyd, would go on to kill the person he was reporting – Scott Spivey – in what local police found to have been self-defence. Valerie Bauerlein’s understated yet excellent journalism underpins this hard-hitting four-parter about events in South Carolina in 2023, and why Spivey’s sister, Jennifer, has long believed there was more to what happened on that day than was initially understood.

7

Describing a podcast as perfect background listening is liable to come off as a little backhanded. But Good Hang is just that: a tonic of a series that offers levity, joy and just the right amount of celebrity schmoozing, and doesn’t require you to work your grey matter too hard. Poehler has great fun chatting to her showbiz pals, reuniting with most of the cast of Parks and Rec in the process. Her episode with Aubrey Plaza is also a masterclass in engaging with a friend’s grief (Plaza had recently been widowed), rather than giving it a wide berth.

6

The first series of this Serial podcast – also hosted and reported by Susan Burton – told the horrifying story of patients who underwent IVF procedures without pain drugs, after a nurse stole their medication and swapped it for saline solution. This follow-up continued the theme of motherhood and medical injustice, focusing on the grim reality of the many mothers affected – as many as 100,000 in the US each year – many of whom feel excruciating pain during caesareans. Terrifying – and very triggering for anyone who has suffered a similar experience – it also provides a crucial window into an under-reported issue.

5

Pulitzer prize-nominated journalist Carole Cadwalladr never fails to tell tales that are anything but fearless. And so it was with her BBC podcast, which saw her team up with Hannah Mossman Moore, the daughter of her ex-partner, so they could detail the awful online abuse that she was subjected to. From chilling interviews with cyberstalking experts to doorstepping the prime suspect, and the forensic detailing of the head-spinning emails and fake accounts Mossman Moore was bombarded with, it’s a captivating, immersive listen that attempts to turn the tables.

4

The New Yorker’s In the Dark has long been one of the most compelling true-crime series around, and its latest British-based outing kept the bar high. Staff writer Heidi Blake was thorough and unrelenting – and left no part of a “bewildering morass” of legal documents unread – as she revisited the infamous White House Farm murders, and questioned the evidence that put Jeremy Bamber behind bars for the murder of his adoptive parents, sister and two nephews. It was bolstered by the hours Blake spends in conversation with Bamber – a contradictory figure who, she said, seems to have an “uncanny detachment” from the murders and a deep grief over the loss of his family.

3

A show about people who fell in love with their AI chatbots could have been an exercise in gawping at baffling lifestyle choices. But while this series didn’t fail to deliver jaw-dropping revelations, it wasn’t at the expense of the interviewees who became romantically entangled with digital creations. Main interviewee Travis, and his account of being taken by surprise by romantic feelings for AI bot Lily Rose, was a sensitively handled, if eye-opening tale that raised questions about the existence of digital consciousness and the difference between online and offline relationships. But it was the way it spun out to look at the brains behind the app and how it became entangled in another user’s wild attempted assassination against a head of state that pushed the show into edge-of-the-seat stuff.

2

In June 2022, British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian indigenous expert Bruno Pereira failed to return home from a reporting trip in Brazil’s Javari Valley. Their disappearance – and the subsequent realisation that they had been murdered – appalled the country, and the world. Tom Phillips, the Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, was the reporter and host of this stirring series – in part an exploration into the climate of organised crime and ecological destruction that surrounded their deaths, but also a tender portrait of two men from different backgrounds united by friendship and a commitment to the rainforest.

1

This word-of-mouth hit wasn’t just a gripping true-crime podcast, but a format-busting exercise in ensuring that describing it as “a gripping true-crime podcast” almost certainly fails to do it justice. It began, ostensibly, as a highlights reel of a standup comedy set, with TV crime producer Jodi Tovay talking about stumbling into the Edinburgh festival gig of comedian Edd Hedges. Hugely engaging clip after hugely engaging clip is played of a show in which Hedges talks about his brush with a murderer, and while it’s so addictive that you want to binge the whole thing in one go, it initially feels a tad like Tovay’s show is simply a hack job on someone else’s comedy. Until her true-crime experience is brought to bear, Hedges goes under the microscope and the series flips on its head to become a meticulously researched investigation that encompasses death, trauma and the notion of truth in art. There’s never been another true-crime show quite like it.