The 17 Best Stories Podcasts (2026)

This American Life basically invented the modern narrative podcast. Ira Glass has been hosting since 1995, first on WBEZ Chicago public radio and then as a podcast that regularly sits at the top of every chart. The show won the first-ever Pulitzer Prize awarded to a radio program, and with over 86,000 ratings on Apple Podcasts alone, it's one of the most listened-to shows in the world.

Each weekly episode picks a theme, then explores it through multiple acts. You might get a journalist's investigation into a broken immigration system in Act One, followed by a David Sedaris essay about his childhood in Act Two, then a short piece from an ordinary person whose life intersected with the theme in unexpected ways. Episodes typically run about an hour, and the format keeps things from ever feeling monotonous.

Glass has a specific talent for finding stories in places nobody else would think to look. A show about a car dealership becomes a meditation on the American dream. A piece about a summer camp turns into something that makes you cry on public transit. The production quality is outstanding without ever feeling overproduced.

The show features contributions from a rotating cast of reporters and writers, including Sarah Vowell and Chana Joffe-Walt. New episodes drop weekly for free, though a Life Partners subscription at $9.99/month gets you bonus content and no ads. After three decades, the show has lost none of its ability to surprise you.

The Moth has been doing one thing since 1997 and doing it better than almost anyone: getting regular people to stand on a stage, under a single spotlight, and tell a true story with no notes. That's it. No fancy production tricks, no scripted dialogue. Just a human being and a microphone.

The podcast draws from both the Peabody Award-winning Moth Radio Hour and original Moth Podcast episodes, pulling from live performances recorded at venues across the country. With over 475 episodes in the archive, there's a staggering range here. You'll hear a firefighter recount the call that changed everything, then a grandmother talk about learning to salsa dance at 70. The stories run about 10-15 minutes each, and several are packed into each episode.

What makes The Moth work is the vulnerability. These aren't polished TED speakers or trained performers. They're people who showed up to a story slam, maybe won, and then got invited to share their five minutes on a bigger stage. Some stories are devastatingly sad. Others are laugh-out-loud funny. Most are both.

The show releases twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, so there's always something fresh. If you want the ad-free experience, The Moth Uninterrupted runs $4.99 a month. But the free version is perfectly listenable. This is the gold standard for live storytelling podcasts, and it has been for nearly three decades. If you've never tried it, start with any episode. They're all standalone.

Snap Judgment is what happens when you take real-life storytelling and score it like a movie. Host Glynn Washington brings a warmth and energy that's impossible to fake, guiding listeners through multiple true stories per episode, each one backed by original music composed specifically for the narrative. The result feels cinematic in a way few audio shows manage.

The show has been running for over 500 episodes across 16 seasons, pulling a 4.7-star average from more than 11,000 ratings. Washington grew up in a cult, which might explain why he has zero tolerance for surface-level narratives. He gravitates toward stories with real stakes and unexpected turns. Recent themed series include "Fever," exploring unconventional love stories, and "Tooth & Claw," about intense human-animal encounters.

Each episode typically features two or three stories, woven together by Washington's introductions and the show's signature musical scoring. The production team treats every segment like its own short film, which means the audio experience is genuinely immersive. You can tell the difference between this and a show where someone just sits in front of a microphone.

Snap Judgment also spawned Spooked, the supernatural storytelling spinoff that became a hit in its own right. New episodes release weekly, free with ads. The premium tier at $4.99/month strips the ads out. If you care about production quality and diverse perspectives in your storytelling podcasts, this one sets the bar.

Radiolab pioneered a style of audio storytelling that did not exist before it came along. Since 2002, the show has taken complex ideas — from science, philosophy, law, and human experience — and turned them into layered narratives that feel almost like music. The production is famously dense, with overlapping voices, sound effects, and original compositions woven through interviews and narration. It can be intense, and some people find the editing style overwhelming, but when it works, nothing else sounds like it.

The show is now hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser, who took over from founding hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. The transition changed the tone somewhat — Miller and Nasser bring their own sensibilities — but the core mission remains the same: find a question worth asking and chase it wherever it leads. One episode might investigate how colors work in the brain. The next might follow a legal case through multiple decades. The storytelling never stays safely in one lane.

With over 830 episodes and a Peabody Award, Radiolab has earned its reputation. The show holds a 4.6 star rating from more than 42,000 Apple reviewers. Episodes typically run 35 to 60 minutes and release weekly. If you want storytelling that makes you think differently about the world — the kind where you find yourself pausing the episode to sit with an idea — Radiolab has been doing that longer and better than almost anyone.

Jonathan Goldstein has a knack for making other people's unresolved life moments feel absolutely urgent. Each episode of Heavyweight starts with a question someone has been carrying around — sometimes for years, sometimes for decades. A falling-out with a friend. A family secret nobody talks about. A regret that keeps surfacing at 3 AM. Goldstein steps in as a kind of emotional detective, setting up reunions, making awkward phone calls, and narrating the whole messy process in his dry, self-deprecating style.

The show originally ran on Gimlet Media before moving to Pushkin Industries, and it has been one of the most critically acclaimed podcasts of the past decade. Goldstein previously worked on This American Life and Wiretap, so he knows how to build a narrative that lands. The episodes are funny and tender in roughly equal measure, and the emotional payoffs — when they come — feel earned rather than manufactured.

With 118 episodes across nine seasons, Heavyweight is not a massive archive, but almost every episode is worth hearing. New installments release weekly during active seasons, running 30 to 50 minutes each. The show tackles personal stories with real stakes but manages to stay light on its feet. If you have ever wanted to go back and fix something in your past, this podcast is about what happens when people actually try to do that.

RISK! is the storytelling podcast that goes where The Moth won't. Host Kevin Allison, known from the comedy group The State, created the show specifically for stories people never thought they'd share in public. The result is raw, uncensored, and frequently jaw-dropping. With over 1,200 episodes, this is one of the largest archives of personal true stories anywhere.

The format mixes live performances with recorded studio stories, and Allison features multiple storytellers per episode, usually organized loosely around a theme. The content is explicitly rated for a reason. You'll hear confessions about addiction, sexuality, embarrassment, grief, and the kind of personal disasters that would make most people change their name and move to another state.

Allison is a genuinely skilled interviewer and host who knows how to draw out the uncomfortable details that make a story land. He also has a knack for finding storytellers from wildly different backgrounds. One episode might pair a retired nurse with a stand-up comedian and a recovering addict, and somehow it all works together.

Fair warning: some listeners find the intro segments and ad breaks on the longer side. But the stories themselves are worth the patience. The show drops new episodes twice a week, and it carries a 4.6-star rating from over 5,400 reviews. If you appreciate storytelling that's honest to the point of being uncomfortable, RISK! is the place to go. It's not for the easily scandalized, but it's very much for people who believe the best stories are the ones you almost didn't tell.

Love and Radio is one of the most quietly influential podcasts ever made. Created and produced by Nick van der Kolk, the show has been running since 2005, and its approach to audio storytelling sits somewhere between documentary, art installation, and confessional. Van der Kolk has a talent for finding subjects who are fascinating precisely because they defy easy categorization — con artists, recluses, people living double lives — and letting them talk without heavy-handed narration getting in the way.

The production style is distinctive. Instead of conventional interview structures, van der Kolk layers audio in ways that create atmosphere and mood. Music, ambient sound, and editing choices serve the emotional arc of each story rather than just conveying information. The result is something that feels more immersive than a typical podcast interview. The show won the Best Independent Nonfiction Audio Award at the 2025 Tribeca Festival for its latest season, Blood Memory, about a man who escaped the Aryan Brotherhood.

With around 136 episodes over two decades, Love and Radio releases infrequently but with real care behind each installment. The 4.6 star average from over 2,200 Apple ratings reflects an audience that appreciates the craftsmanship. This is not a background-listening podcast. The stories demand your attention, and they reward it with perspectives you genuinely will not find anywhere else.

Ear Hustle started inside San Quentin State Prison in 2017, co-created by incarcerated artist Earlonne Woods and volunteer photographer Nigel Poor. The show tells stories about daily life behind bars — not sensationalized crime narratives, but the actual texture of living in prison. How do you maintain a romantic relationship through a phone? What does it feel like when your cellmate gets released and you do not? How does a lifer think about time differently than someone with a release date?

Woods was released in 2018 after California Governor Jerry Brown commuted his sentence, and the show evolved with him. It now covers both life inside and the messy, complicated process of reentry into the outside world. The storytelling is warm, funny, and honest in ways that challenge assumptions about incarcerated people without ever being preachy about it. Woods and Poor have genuine chemistry as co-hosts, and their different perspectives — one who lived it, one who observed it — create a dynamic that keeps the show grounded.

With 210 episodes and a remarkable 4.9 star rating from over 20,000 Apple reviews, Ear Hustle is one of the most beloved podcasts in any genre. It is part of the Radiotopia network and won a Peabody Award. Episodes run about 30 to 40 minutes and release regularly. The show proves that some of the most compelling stories come from places most people never see.

Modern Love started as a New York Times column over twenty years ago, and the podcast version has become its own phenomenon. Now hosted by Anna Martin, the show brings personal essays about love in all its forms to audio, blending readings with conversations that add depth and context to each story.

The column has always attracted remarkable writing from ordinary people, and the podcast preserves that quality. You'll hear essays about falling in love at 75, navigating divorce with grace, coming out to unsupportive parents, and the quiet grief of losing a partner. The writing is consistently sharp, often funny, and almost always surprising in where it ends up.

With 477 episodes in the archive, there's a lot to explore. New episodes land every Wednesday, with bonus subscriber-exclusive content on Fridays for New York Times subscribers. The show carries a 4.3-star average from over 8,400 ratings. Episodes vary in length but tend to run 20-40 minutes.

The podcast also inspired an Amazon TV series and multiple book collections, which speaks to how resonant these stories are. Martin brings a conversational warmth to her hosting, drawing out the essayists in follow-up interviews that often reveal details the original essay left out. If you care about love stories that are messy, complicated, and deeply human rather than fairy-tale perfect, Modern Love delivers that week after week. It's the kind of show that makes you feel less alone in your own relationship struggles.

The Truth is an anthology fiction podcast that treats each episode like a short film you experience with your ears. Created by Jonathan Mitchell, every installment presents a standalone story with a full cast, professional acting, and sound design detailed enough to make you forget you are not watching something. The genre range is wide — dark comedy, sci-fi, psychological drama, absurdist humor — and the writing consistently punches above what you might expect from a podcast.

Mitchell's background in sound design shows in every episode. Doors creak, rain falls on specific surfaces, rooms have distinct acoustic signatures. None of it feels gratuitous. The sonic environment serves the story the way cinematography serves a film. The cast rotates with each episode, drawing from a pool of actors who clearly understand the medium. Some episodes will make you laugh, others will unsettle you, and a few will do both at the same time.

Part of the Radiotopia network, The Truth has been running since 2012 with 184 episodes in the archive. New stories come out regularly, and episodes typically run 15 to 30 minutes — short enough to finish in a single commute. The show carries a 4.7 star rating from over 3,600 Apple reviews. If you love short fiction and wish more of it came with world-class production values, The Truth is the podcast you have been looking for.

LeVar Burton spent decades telling kids to take his word for it on Reading Rainbow. Now he reads to grown-ups, and it turns out he is just as good at it. Each episode of LeVar Burton Reads features a complete short story by a published author — writers like Octavia Butler, Ray Bradbury, N.K. Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor, and Kurt Vonnegut — read aloud by Burton himself in immersive 3D audio with subtle sound design underneath.

Burton's voice is one of those instruments that just works for narration. He does not do theatrical accents or over-the-top character voices. Instead, he reads with a steady warmth and intelligence that lets the writing breathe. The story selections lean toward speculative fiction, literary fiction, and stories with social consciousness, though the range extends into humor and horror depending on the episode. Burton handpicks each story, and his taste is excellent.

The show ran from 2017 through 2024, building an archive of 206 episodes. It holds a remarkable 4.9 star rating from over 17,000 Apple reviews — one of the highest-rated podcasts in any category. Episodes run 30 to 60 minutes, and the show recommends headphones for the full 3D audio experience. If you grew up watching Reading Rainbow, this podcast feels like a natural continuation. If you did not, it still works beautifully as a curated short fiction experience read by someone who genuinely loves the written word.

Everything Is Alive is one of the strangest and most charming podcasts ever made. The concept sounds like a joke: host Ian Chillag conducts unscripted interviews with inanimate objects. A can of generic cola named Louis. A bar of soap named Tara. A grain of sand named Chioke. But the conversations are played completely straight, and what emerges is something surprisingly philosophical, funny, and occasionally moving.

The guests are improv performers inhabiting these objects, and the interviews unfold naturally without a script. Chillag asks genuine questions — what is it like to be a lamppost? How does a pillow feel about being replaced? — and the answers weave in real facts about the objects alongside fictional inner lives. A conversation with a subway seat becomes a meditation on loneliness. An interview with a bar of soap touches on mortality and purpose. The show manages to be both absurd and sincere, which is a difficult balance to maintain.

Part of the Radiotopia network, Everything Is Alive ran for six seasons from 2018 to 2024, producing 59 episodes. It holds a 4.8 star rating from over 5,200 Apple reviews. Episodes are short — typically 15 to 25 minutes — and perfect for when you want something that will make you smile and think at the same time. There really is nothing else like it in podcasting.

Spooked is a spinoff of Snap Judgment, and it has carved out its own massive following by focusing exclusively on true supernatural stories told by the people who experienced them. Hosted by Glynn Washington and produced by KQED and Snap Studios, the show has 221 episodes and an impressive 4.6-star rating from over 16,000 reviewers.

Every episode features real people describing encounters they can barely explain. A woman hears her dead grandmother's voice on the phone. A night security guard watches a figure walk through a locked door. A family moves into a house where the previous residents left without their belongings. The storytellers are not professional performers. They're regular people recounting experiences that clearly still shake them.

The production values are superb. Like its parent show, Spooked uses original music and sound design to build atmosphere without overwhelming the narration. Washington's introductions set the tone perfectly, though some listeners note he can be a bit theatrical. Episodes run 25 to 40 minutes and drop every Friday.

What makes Spooked work is the sincerity of the storytellers. These aren't ghost hunters or paranormal investigators with an agenda. They're teachers, nurses, truck drivers, and retired military personnel who experienced something they cannot explain and finally decided to talk about it. The show treats their accounts with respect rather than skepticism, which makes for genuinely unsettling listening. It's the kind of podcast you probably shouldn't listen to alone at night, but you will anyway.

The Mortified Podcast has one of the best concepts in all of podcasting: adults get on stage and read, out loud, the embarrassing things they wrote as kids. Diaries, love letters, song lyrics, school assignments. The cringe is real, and it's magnificent. Hosted by Neil Katcher and David Nadelberg, the show is part of Radiotopia from PRX and has 274 episodes in its catalog.

What sounds like a simple comedy bit turns out to be something much more affecting. A woman reads the diary entry she wrote the day her parents divorced. A man shares the love poem he wrote to his seventh-grade crush who didn't know he existed. The audience laughs, sure, but there's usually a moment in each reading where the room gets very quiet, because the embarrassment connects to something real and painful that everyone in the audience has also felt.

The show carries a 4.7-star rating from about 2,200 reviewers, and it releases new episodes biweekly. Recent seasons have included tournament-style competitions between different Mortified community chapters and celebrity guest appearances from people like Jodie Sweetin and Joey McIntyre.

Mortified has also expanded into a concert film called Mortified Nation, a Tubi series called The Mortified Guide, a kids spinoff podcast, and a card game. But the original podcast remains the heart of it all. Ad-free listening is available through Endless Radiotopia at $4.99 a month. If you need a show that's equal parts hilarious and unexpectedly touching, this is it.

Normal Gossip scratches an itch you did not know you had. Hosted by Rachelle Hampton, each episode features a piece of reader-submitted gossip about people you will never meet. Not celebrity gossip — regular-people gossip. The coworker who lied about their vacation. The neighbor whose garden is clearly a front for something. The friend group that imploded over a Thanksgiving casserole recipe. These are the stories you would tell your best friend over drinks, elevated to narrative art.

Hampton brings on a different guest each episode, usually a comedian or writer, and walks them through the story in real time. The guest reacts, speculates, takes sides, and generally behaves the way any good gossip recipient should. The dynamic works because Hampton is a skilled storyteller who knows how to build suspense and stick the landing, while the guests provide the genuine reactions that make the whole thing feel like eavesdropping on a great conversation.

With 103 episodes and growing, Normal Gossip is part of the Radiotopia network and releases weekly. The show carries a 4.6 star rating from over 5,700 Apple reviews. Created by Kelsey McKinney and Alex Sujong Laughlin, the show proves that you do not need high stakes or famous subjects to tell a compelling story. Sometimes the most engaging narrative is about someone you have never met doing something you cannot believe.

Selected Shorts has been presenting live readings of short fiction at Symphony Space in New York City since 1985, making it one of the longest-running literary events in the country. The podcast captures these performances, pairing celebrated actors with stories by both established and emerging writers. The result is something between a literary journal and a one-person show — each episode brings a story fully to life through performance.

Hosted by Meg Wolitzer, the podcast features performers like Claire Danes, BD Wong, and Amber Ruffin reading works by a wide range of authors. The story selections span genres and styles — realist fiction, magical realism, humor, pathos — and the curation is thoughtful. Wolitzer introduces each piece with context about the author and the story, then steps aside to let the performance speak for itself.

The podcast archive is still growing, with 32 episodes available and new ones premiering weekly on Thursdays. The connection to Symphony Space gives the show a gravitas that most fiction podcasts lack — these are not bedroom recordings, they are produced performances in one of New York's premier arts venues. If you love short fiction and appreciate hearing stories read by people who know how to inhabit a text, Selected Shorts is a rare treat in the podcast landscape.

The Story Collider sits at the intersection of science and personal storytelling, and it makes that crossroads more interesting than you might expect. The show features live performances where scientists, patients, teachers, and others share true stories about how science has shaped their lives. These are not lectures or explainers — they are narratives about human experience that happen to involve science, told by people who are genuinely affected by the subject.

Hosted by Erin Barker and Misha Gajewski, the podcast draws from dozens of live events held across the country each year. A cancer researcher talks about the moment she found a lump on her own body. An astronomer describes losing his eyesight. A patient shares what it felt like to be misdiagnosed for years. The stories are personal and specific, which is what gives them their power. You do not need a science background to connect with them.

With over 700 episodes in the archive, The Story Collider is one of the most prolific storytelling podcasts around. New episodes drop weekly, running about 20 to 40 minutes. The show holds a 4.4 star rating from nearly 800 Apple reviews. If you like the live-storytelling format of The Moth but wish more stories engaged with science, medicine, and discovery, The Story Collider fills that space with real emotional depth.