As chosen by Podcast Review’s staff, here are the ten best podcasts of 2025:
10. You Feeling This?: Season 2
The first season of You Feeling This? bounced between narratives that were speculative and sentimental, but its “mixtape” concept and ambitious attempts to portray love’s multiplicity weren’t always successful. Set in Los Angeles, the show was sometimes sexy, sometimes cringey, and the result was a series as bifurcated as the city it depicted.
Creator and showrunner James Kim (Moonface) brought his understated and sensitive style to the production, but despite good intentions, the series felt more like a meditation on the impact of technology on human relationships (Zoom calls; AI girlfriends) than a broader exploration of love in LA. That said, there was enough interesting stuff there to keep the show on my radar.
You Feeling This? returned this year with a new subject matter: horror. The result is more successful: immersive, eerie, engrossing. The production is tight. The acting is largely affecting. The narrator, ‘Dickson Lewis,’ boasts a gravelly voice that mimics an old-timey radio DJ keeping the listener company as they drive down a dusty desert highway. The series of twelve original stories, each created by a different writer, have less than thirty minutes to deliver their impact. And perhaps because the qualifications for a good horror story are simpler than that of a good love story, I was quickly hooked. Better yet, I was scared. So scared that I had to pause episode one, ‘Retreat,’ before the climactic encounter to gather myself.
Other than switching themes, Season 2 has also moved away from the LA setting. ‘Retreat’ is set in a state that experiences sudden heavy rains. ‘Unbearable’ follows English characters. Despite this diversity, the stories feel no less claustrophobic than the urban settings of the first season, but it does make more thematic sense this time around.
There have been strong fiction releases in 2025. From Catskull to The Harbingers, storytelling podcasts remain popular, though niche. I hope shows like You Feeling This? introduces more casual listeners to the genre. — Alice Florence Orr
9. Ill-Advised with Bill Nighy
Bill Nighy’s podcast has only been around for a couple of months, but already feels timeless. Listening gives the impression of turning on the radio during a lonely late night drive, and finding instant companionship with a drolly mellifluous DJ who learned a thing or two in his day.
Delightfully, most of each episode (they come in around the half hour mark) starts with the beloved British actor in “agony uncle” mode. The audience questions have so far have ranged from “How do you choose a good pair of glasses?” to “How do you deal with sleepless nights?” to most memorably of all, “How do I make up with my horse?”
Nighy’s answers are always comic, often biographical, and sometimes — despite his bashful protests to the contrary — surprisingly helpful.
After that, he reads suggestions listeners have sent in for annoying words they think should be banned from the English language, takes us through a playlist for each episode, and ends by reading an excerpt of a book he loves. On whatever subject he’s opining, Nighy’s warmth and dry wit make him excellent company. — Chloe Walker
8. Final Thoughts: Jerry Springer
Leon Neyfakh’s hit rate continues to rise. The former print journalist turned podcaster is perhaps best known for hosting political podcast Slow Burn, before co-founding Prolog Projects who produce shows like Fiasco and Celebrity Book Club. In May, Neyfakh launched Jerry Springer: Final Thoughts, a nine episode series that explores the television personality’s dual life as a former politician and, later, talk show host.
The show, which sits behind Audible’s paywall, charts Springer’s rise, his scandals, and his struggle to reconcile his public image with his political aspirations. He was a controversial figure, frequently accused of exploiting the less fortunate on his reality daytime show. Nevertheless, there was something enigmatic about Springer, a quality that Neyfakh skilfully draws out across the series.
It matters little whether you watched The Jerry Springer Show in its hayday. For those who grew up in that era, Final Thoughts listeners report a trip down memory lane spliced with revelations about Springer’s early political career. For someone like me, who can barely call themselves a child of the nineties, the series was eye opening melodrama akin to watching that infamous Enron documentary. Neyfakh’s main accomplishment here is illustrating the complexity of Springer’s persona, rather than affirming an enduring cultural influence, and just like its predecessor, Think Twice, this character portrait is a must listen for Audible subscribers, as it is not yet available for wider consumption. — AFO
7. The Plot Thickens: Season 6
More than sixty years after it was released, the movie Cleopatra survives in the cultural memory chiefly because it was the film on which Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton fell in love. But there was a lot more to the mammoth production than that. In the sixth season of TCM podcast The Plot Thickens, host Ben Mankiewicz dives into the deeper story behind the classic… which just so happens to have been directed by his Great Uncle Joe.
By centering the podcast on Joseph Mankiewicz, a Hollywood titan who’s nevertheless a fraction as famous as Taylor and Burton, The Plot Thickens casts a captivating new light on a decades-old movie. Knowing Joe won four Oscars in two years and still felt like “a midget in a family of giants” is as great a shorthand as any to a man who was formidably talented, riddled with self-doubt, and almost destroyed by the production of the film he’d come to despise. It’s one hell of a story, told with all the drama and heart of a great blockbuster. — CW
This year, the show that quietly became a never-skip-an-episode listen for me was People vs. Algorithms. Hosted by The Rebooting’s Brian Morrissey, former Hearst president Troy Young, and former Airbnb chief design officer Alex Schleifer, the weekly show covers media, AI, and culture, as well as the ripple effects of these forces.
A lot of media podcasts treat business and tech with a reflexive cynicism. A lot of business and tech podcasts swing the other way, worshipping founders with a boring boosterism. People vs. Algorithms sidesteps both: it’s skeptical without being smug, optimistic without being gullible, and consistently grounded in how the world actually works. — Jack Conway
Has there been a grabbier podcast opening this year? Host TJ Raphael describes sweetly nervous teenage couple Abby and Nathan getting ready for what we assume is their wedding — curling her hair, admiring his suit, listening to the buzz of their families gathering in the church. Nathan holds their newborn son as they walk down the aisle.
But a queasy feeling underlines what should have been an exciting day, and soon we see why. Because their son was conceived out of wedlock, and the couple’s parents are fervently evangelical, this is not a wedding but a forced adoption. Abby and Nathan both want to keep their child, but a different couple have been deemed more worthy — this is the handover ceremony.
The rest of the show dives into the horror of maternity hospitals, and how it came to be that young mothers all over America are still being bribed and blackmailed into giving up babies by a toxic institution. It’s riveting, infuriating stuff. — CW
Fela Aníkúlápó Kútì was a musical pioneer and political activist who was radicalized in America, and then returned to his native Nigeria, where he became both a superstar and a target of the Nigerian government. In this podcast, host Jad Abumrad (Radiolab, Dolly Parton’s America) explores Kuti’s important yet complicated legacy. Abrumrad is one of the leading voices in podcasting, and he uses his clout to get access from everyone from actor Ayo Edebiri to Kuti’s relatives, including cousin and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka.
The podcast has all the high quality production value and on-location original audio that listeners would expect from a veteran like Abrumrad, but there is also a great deal of nuance. It’s long: twelve episodes, many of which are over an hour, and the format offers space for ideas to form, and questions to be asked. It has something in common with Kuti’s music: there is a strong sense of discovery. As podcasts pivot to video, Fear No Man stands out as a great audio exploration. I genuinely looked forward to every episode. — Wendy J. Fox
Havoc Town was half way through when I filed my glowing review earlier this year — now that it’s done, it’s a pleasure to report it very much stuck the landing. Written by Nicholas Tecosky, Havoc Town is the story of a plague that turns residents of its titular setting into vampires. The key to saving the town lies 200 years earlier, when the last plague struck. Throughout the twelve episode series, we follow both the past and present timelines, until the two converge in spectacular fashion.
Although the show is operating in well-worn genre territory and doesn’t attempt to add anything drastically new to the familiar ground, it uses the established toolbox with both style and gory aplomb, injecting almost every episode with at least once scene so vividly scary it’s hard to believe you aren’t watching it play out in front of you. Aided by a top-flight voice cast, Havoc Town is a bloody, delicious treat for fans of the frightening. — CW
Listening to a podcast about a woman convicted of cult-related trafficking and conspiracy charges shouldn’t elicit sympathy. But after just a few episodes of CBC and Campside Media’s latest series of Uncover, ‘Allison After NXIVM,’ I was surprised to discover that Allison Mack, the former actor who became a member of the infamous sex cult, might have been a victim, too.
To admit this doesn’t excuse Mack’s choices. Nobody forced her to commit her crimes. But as someone familiar with the case, who has covered many podcasts about cults over the years, hearing the full story from Mack’s perspective made me realize that I have encountered many people like Mack: weak personalities susceptible to snake oil promises. These qualities, mixed with untreated sexual trauma, created a void that allowed a charismatic and dangerous man to take advantage.
Over the course of the seven episode series, the constant shifting from sympathy to revulsion feels like whiplash, and Natalie Robehmed’s reporting masterfully steers the propulsive narrative.
Although it was a late release, Allison After NXIVM quickly became my favorite show of the year. From The Devil You Know to Dirtbag Climber, I’ve been impressed by CBC’s true crime output this year. They don’t take the easy option, and this distressing yet endlessly compelling series using Mack’s own testimony is my pick of a great bunch. — AFO
Ronan Farrow’s premise in Not A Very Good Murderer is interesting for people who care about journalism, specifically on the question of how do investigative reporters vet sources. In this case, the potential source is Cecelia “Cece” Doane, a former Miss Arizona who claimed on social media that a former president sexually assaulted her.
Doane is in her 70s now and living in Paradise Valley, an exclusive enclave north of Phoenix where the median home sold for 3.2M in 2025. Doane has also been the subject of ongoing murder investigations in plots against an ex-husband and current husband. For what it’s worth, the current husband seems fine about the whole thing.
Farrow doesn’t take a side. Not a Very Good Murderer is not ultimately about trying to understand if Cece Doane is a wannabe assassin. The Audible Original podcast more character study of a woman who has obviously been deeply wounded in her life, who has definitely exhibited some questionable behavior, and who has also wrestled with alcohol addiction and trauma. Her privilege has protected her in some ways and exposed her in others. As Farrow poses his questions and follow-ups, she’s might even be empathetic. Almost. — WJF
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