BEST PODCASTS OF THE YEAR
1. Dead Eyes: “Tom” (Headgum)
When this series started in early 2020, it was tricky to see where things would go: Actor and comedian Connor Ratliff was mounting a quixotic quest to find out why Tom Hanks had fired him from a bit part on Band
of Brothers. (Ratliff was told it was because Hanks thought he had “dead eyes.”) It soon became apparent that what Ratliff really wanted was to produce thoughtful, funny interviews with friends and acquaintances about the tenuous nature of life in the entertainment business—ultimately booking an actual, fascinating sit-down with Hanks. The show’s overall effect is sublime. I wonder if there will be anything like it ever again.
2. Normal Gossip (Defector Media)
The show, hosted by Kelsey
McKinney and produced by Alex Sujong Laughlin, revolves around a simple premise impeccably realized. Each episode sees McKinney delivering a robust piece of gossip to a guest, and it’s the stuff of group chats everywhere: dating mishaps, social meltdowns, inexplicable behavior. Good gossip can take your breath away. Normal
Gossip bottles that thrill.
3. The Trojan Horse Affair (Serial Productions and The New York Times)
Journalists Brian Reed and Hamza Syed dive into a political scandal that roiled the English city of Birmingham in the early 2010s and inflamed Islamophobia throughout the U.K. The entire experience is elevated by how the show integrates the dynamics of the duo’s emerging partnership. Serial Productions’ best work since S-Town.
4. Mother Country Radicals (Crooked Media)
This show tells the story of the Weather Underground—the militant left-wing organization founded in the late ’60s that sought to overthrow the U.S. government— from the inside out: The podcast is led by Zayd Ayers Dohrn, the son of two of the group’s leaders, and he builds an oral history from interviews that also feature members of the Black Liberation Army, the LSD movement, and others. It’s a remarkable document.
5. The 11th: “His Saturn Return” (Pineapple Street Studios)
Sai Sion’s hourlong drama is a coming-of-age story following an egocentric young space alien named Duran Durag as he undergoes a series of trials. Energy shoots through the whole enterprise, which draws on everything from Douglas Adams and
E.T. to RuPaul’s Drag Race and astrology.
6. Welcome to Provincetown (Rococo Punch, Room Tone, Stitcher’s Witness Docs)
This gorgeously composed podcast, led by Mitra Kaboli, drifts among the individuals who flock to the Cape Cod town over the course of a summer.
Part vérité, part travel journal, it fits within a tradition of art-forward audio works—a reminder of the soulfulness that’s possible in the medium.
7. Heidiworld (iHeartMedia)
Heidi Fleiss is the “Hollywood Madam” who rose to prominence in the early ’90s for running an escort business popular with the L.A. elite, and Molly Lambert’s series on her rise and fall is a compelling read on this country’s punitive and puritanical relationships with sex, money, and women who accrue power. Expansive, digressive, ambitious.
8. The Prince (The Economist)
From a robust audio operation, this is a limited series on Chinese leader Xi Jinping, now arguably the most powerful person on the world stage, hosted by Sue-Lin Wong. It’s a feat of explanatory journalism, shepherding listeners through Xi’s ornate political history in a manner that’s clear, judicious, and grounded in global stakes. One of the best audio documentaries I heard all year.
9. Imaginary Advice: “The True Crime of Your Frozen Death” (Independent) Imaginary Advice
is a laboratory for British writer Ross Sutherland’s adventures in audio fiction, and this episode follows a truecrime podcaster as she tries to solve a series of murders of … other truecrime podcasters. Oh, and it’s performed entirely in Italian—with the expectation it will be consumed by people who don’t speak the language. It’s bombastic fun and hilarious to realize the beats of true-crime narratives are so familiar you can still follow along. (There’s a subtitled version, too!)
10. Sounds Like a Cult (Independent)
This breezy chatcast sees hosts Amanda Montell and Isa Medina pick up phenomena floating in the culture—from essential oils and flat-Earthers to theater kids and academia—and inspect them by asking a deceptively effective question: “Why does this feel cultlike?” What begins as a playful take evokes something fundamental about the world.