The best podcasts of 2025

Threshold

"Threshold" is a terrific podcast about the natural world, notable for its "exquisite and imaginative sound design", said James Marriott in The Times. Host Amy Martin explores questions such as: 'What sound does a frozen lake make on a sunny day?" (The answer, to my ears, is a "sort of squeaky, bloopy, howling noise like the ghost of a sad spaniel trapped in a tunnel".) Elsewhere, we meet the treehopper, which communicates by sending "waves of vibrations through its legs into the stems and leaves of plants", and listen to the sound of a coral reef: a static crackle of "claw clicks" made by snapping shrimp. This is a "commendably imaginative" series – and if it "gets a little precious" at times, "well, sometimes whimsy is the price you pay for interesting thoughts".

Dancing with Shadows

"Dancing with Shadows", the latest in the "Legacy" documentary strand, looks into the history of the New York City Ballet and the legacy of its legendary co-founder, the Georgian-American choreographer George Balanchine. One of the most revered figures in dance, Balanchine was an undisputed artistic genius, said Fiona Sturges in the Financial Times. But according to some accounts, he was also a "bully and a control freak who demanded impossible standards from his dancers and used his immense power to prey on young ballerinas whom he called his muses". An absorbing examination of the celebrated company, which has been "mired in scandal" in recent years, Nicky Anderson's podcasts allows for multiple viewpoints about Balanchine and his methods – including those of dancers who "willingly submitted to Balanchine's strictures". The result is "a rare and penetrating portrait of a notoriously closed world where dancers often sacrifice a personal life, bodily autonomy and their health in pursuit of their art".

Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud

Sometimes the mind needs a break, said Jenny McCartney in The Spectator. "And I can't think of a better stopping-off place than the soothing, gloriously bonkers discussions" on the "Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud" podcast. The show's premise is that the fashion designer – daughter of Lucian and great-granddaughter of Sigmund – invites guests to recline (literally) on her couch and "talk over any and every aspect of their relationship to fashion". Her "mellifluous, affirming manner is much more soft soap than wire wool", but it suits the subject matter, and the concept "proves a surprisingly fruitful route into family history, personal stories and high-grade gossip". To date, the starry and "eclectic" guest list has included Nick Cave, Kate Moss, Zadie Smith, Karl Ove Knausgård, and – best value of all – Nicky Haslam.

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Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics

At this time of year, when the days are cold and the evenings dark, "I resort to comfort listening", said Rachel Cunliffe in The New Statesman; and lately, I have been snuggling up with "Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics" (currently being given a re-run on Radio 4, with all episodes available on BBC Sounds). Like "the history teacher you wish you'd had", Haynes brings "the classical world to life with a mix of close textual analysis and irreverent comedy". Each episode examines a single figure from antiquity, either real or mythological, from the familiar (Cleopatra, Homer) to the lesser-known (Martial, the satirical poet whose work "blends lofty musings on the state of Rome with filthy jokes"). Aided by assorted guests, Haynes "unravels what the ancient sources actually tell us, and makes her audience fall in love with her subjects – and with classics in general".

Cement City

If you are in the market for a documentary podcast, check out last year's excellent "Cement City", said Reggie Ugwu in The New York Times. In an effort to find out what is "ailing small towns in America's one-time manufacturing hubs", journalist Jeanne Marie Laskas and producer Erin Anderson moved to one – "as in bought a house and made friends with the neighbours". Their series, based on their three years of living in and reporting from Donora, Pennsylvania, is an "extraordinarily immersive portrait of day-to- day life in a troubled but irreducibly vibrant community".

At Your Own Peril

Lucy Easthope spent more than two decades working in emergency planning and disaster management – plane crashes, terrorist attacks, natural disasters, fires, the Covid pandemic – and in 2022 she wrote a well-received book ("When the Dust Settles") about what she'd learnt, said Rachel Cunliffe in The New Statesman. Now, she has made an excellent series for Radio 4, "At Your Own Peril" (available on BBC Sounds), which explores the history of risk: "what it is, how humans calculate and respond to it, and what we can do to manage it in the face of existential threats such as climate change, nuclear war and the rise of artificial intelligence". It's not the sunniest of subject matters, but Easthope counters the bleakness with "fascinating forays" into related areas. She invites Mary Beard to discuss Roman gambling games, for example, and Nate Silver shares his insights on predicting elections. "Yes, this series will terrify you. But isn't it better to understand what we're facing?"

The Spy Who

The appetite for tales of espionage shows no signs of waning, said Fiona Sturges in the FT, with "Slow Horses", "Black Doves" and "The Day of the Jackal" all hits on TV. Fans of those shows should try "The Spy Who", hosted by actors Indira Varma and Raza Jaffrey, which is now in its 11th series. Its subjects include Klaus Fuchs, who sold US secrets to the Soviets; Willie Carlin, MI5's top spy inside Sinn Féin; and Ian Fleming's wartime exploits in Norway. I normally recoil from dramatised segments in podcasts, owing to their "often overzealous acting"; here, though, the hosts do all the voices, and the "result is a show that makes you feel as if you're being read a particularly action- packed bedtime story, albeit one with immersive sound design" (headphones recommended) and "an elegantly understated score".

The Wonder of Stevie

Between 1972 and 1976, Stevie Wonder released five albums – culminating in his "magnum opus" "Songs in the Key of Life" – that "turned him into a one-man pop colossus", said Fiona Sturges in the Financial Times. "The Wonder of Stevie" is a new podcast filled with glorious music from the albums, in which the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Wesley Morris (a funny and authoritative host) discusses this purple patch, helped by Wonder's musical collaborators and famous fans including Smokey Robinson, Janelle Monáe and Barack Obama. This may sound like borderline "hagiography", and perhaps it is; but it works here. "This is an unabashed celebration of Wonder's music, joyful in mood and made with palpable love."

Buried: The Last Witness

The first series of "Buried", a terrific investigative podcast made by the environmental reporters Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor, was a hit last year, said Fiona Sturges in the Financial Times. For the second series, "Buried: The Last Witness", the pair have teamed up with the Welsh actor Michael Sheen, to explore the "shocking" story of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), toxic fire-retardant chemicals that were used in everything from paint to paper, until they were banned in most countries in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Back in 2017, Sheen was scrolling the internet when he saw a reference to Douglas Gowan, a former National Farmers' Union consultant who'd become concerned about the impact of PCBs leaking from a landfill site in South Wales in the late 1960s, and spent years trying, in vain, to blow the whistle. Sheen arranged to meet Gowan, who died in 2018, and recordings of some of their conversations are included in this disturbing podcast. "There is much here that will make you gasp, not just at the human and environmental impact of PCBs, but at the brazenness of those responsible."

Thief at the British Museum

Hosted by Katie Razzall, and recently broadcast on Radio 4, "Thief at the British Museum" describes how hundreds of the museum's artefacts "went missing and were sold (on eBay!), but nobody at the institution noticed", said Miranda Sawyer in The Observer. Although it's true crime, the tone of the podcast is more that of an Agatha Christie-style whodunnit, with an "eccentric foreign detective" – in this case the Dutch antiquities dealer Dr Ittai Gradel, who first alerted the museum authorities to the suspected inside job. It's a compelling and astonishing tale, with a "suspenseful orchestral soundtrack" – and makes for a "delightful" listen.

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Fur and Loathing

The British journalist Nicky Woolf is a specialist in internet subcultures whose last two podcasts were "Finding Q", about the origins of the QAnon conspiracy theory, and "The Sound", about the phenomenon of Havana syndrome, said Miranda Sawyer in The Observer. His excellent new six-parter "Fur & Loathing", is about the biggest chemical weapons attack on US soil in 50 years, for which no one has ever been charged.

In 2014, at a hotel in Illinois, potentially deadly chlorine gas was released at a convention of "furries" – people who like dressing up in cartoony animal costumes. Nineteen people were hospitalised, yet – in part because the victims were wearing silly costumes – the attack was treated by federal investigators more as a prank than a life-threatening criminal act. Woolf combines in-depth investigation with a light touch to create a "strangely gripping show that uncovers more than you might imagine (and, no, that's not a furry joke)".

Miss Me?

Celebrity-hosted podcasts are often a bit flat because "the stars involved don't do the behind-the-scenes work on their presenting, and are too cautious about their careers to do anything other than gush", said Miranda Sawyer in The Observer. But "Miss Me?", by lifelong friends Lily Allen and Miquita Oliver, is not one of these. Their show is relaxed, super-honest – and "laugh-out-loud funny". Oliver, a London-based TV presenter, takes on more of the hosting role, while pop star Allen, who lives in Brooklyn, supplies "intimate and hilarious" anecdotes. (Sample: once, when a rapper she was sleeping with asked her about her liposuction scars, she was so embarrassed, she told him they were the result of a hip replacement.) It's really two shows in one: on Mondays the pair chat about what's on their minds or in the news, then on Thursdays they answer listeners' questions. "Topics arrive and are dismissed, talked around, then recalled; huge diversions are made into other areas." It’s a bit messy and a "complete hoot".

Looking for more podcast recommendations? Take your pick from our round-up of the best true crime and political shows.