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".

Final Thoughts: Jerry Springer

"The Jerry Springer Show" was a TV phenomenon, running for almost 30 years and at its peak out-rating Oprah Winfrey, the queen of daytime, said Fiona Sturges in the Financial Times. People queued up to air their dirty linen in front of the show's baying audiences, while critics damned its "increasingly explosive stories of adultery, incest, white supremacy and sexual deviancy – you may recall the man who married a pony – as a new entertainment low". An excellent new podcast charting the rise of the show, and its host (who died in 2023), is not well timed: it comes only months after a Netflix documentary on the same subject. However, "Final Thoughts: Jerry Springer" is a more meticulous and thoughtful proposition, digging much deeper into the ethics and long-term impacts of the programme. It's also a gripping and insightful character study of an intriguing, complex man.

The world, the universe and us

"The world, the universe and us" is the New Scientist's recently revamped (and ambitiously titled) podcast, in which Dr Rowan Hooper and Dr Penny Sarchet "take an amiable weekly canter through the latest science news, and deftly elucidate it for an audience of lay people. It's a great public service," said James Marriott in The Times – and the pair are "endearingly nerdy". "Next up we have the results of a seven-year study into the nature of consciousness," remarks Dr Hooper after an item on dark photons. "Yesss!" Sarchet exclaims, as though barely restraining herself from delivering an excited fist pump. Among the interesting things I've learnt from listening to their terrific show is that every chimpanzee has its own "signature drum beat"; and that "intelligent behaviour and consciousness are really two very different things". Although I "don't think we needed scientists to tell us" the latter: "Just watch 'Love Island'."

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Illuminated: The Organ Symphony

"What does your liver sound like?" Or your kidneys, lungs, heart or brain? Not the bodily squelch of fluids mixing or air pumping. But as music. What if our vital organs, and our relationship to them, were reconceived as musical notes and instruments and composed into a symphony? What might that sound like? The question might seem so eccentric as to be almost nonsensical, said Rachel Cunliffe in The New Statesman. But it's the premise for a "bizarre and brilliant" Radio 4 special titled "Illuminated: The Organ Symphony". Maia Miller-Lewis spoke to five people, each with a special relationship with a different one of the five vital organs – one participant had donated a kidney to her husband and written a novella about it; another's lungs had both collapsed within the space of two years. She then made a soundscape of their stories, which composer David Owen Norris turned into classical scores, with each organ assigned a section of the orchestra. Performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra, these pieces are "eerily surreal yet emotive".

Windows

"Windows", an engaging podcast from Transmission Roundhouse, reminds me of Catherine Carr’s "Where Are You Going?", said Fiona Sturges in the Financial Times. In the latter, Carr poses a simple question to strangers, to glean fascinating snapshots of human life. In "Windows", Ivan d’Avoine and Derick Armah do something equally simple: they go into Londoners’ homes and get them to talk about the view from their window. We meet Jill Rock, an octogenarian sculptor who lives in the modernist Brunswick Centre in central London; and David Adebiyi, a scientist whose window in Herne Hill looks onto a busy shared courtyard. It’s “warmly meditative”, and the “sound design, which interweaves music and the everyday sounds we normally tune out, is truly lovely”.

The Slow Newscast

Tortoise Media's "The Slow Newscast" is a weekly investigative podcast that has so far notched up 331 episodes (of which 175 are available to download). The show is well worth a listen, said Miranda Sawyer in The Observer – and one recent episode, "Die Die DEI", had me gripped. Written and presented by Stephen Armstrong, it explores the Trump administration's "war on woke" (specifically the "diversity, equity and inclusion" agenda) by focusing on a single key player: Stephen Miller, who is the deputy chief of staff for policy and also the homeland security adviser. It's clear that Miller is "far from a nice guy"; one contributor describes him baldly as "a violently right-wing racist who is pushing a white nationalist agenda". A childhood friend recalls how Miller abruptly ended their friendship, citing the man's Latino heritage as a disqualifying factor. The disturbing truth, Armstrong reckons, is that Miller's views haven't changed a jot since then.

How Do You Cope?

Comedian John Robins's "laugh-out-loud" funny podcast Elis James and John Robins has been a hit for Radio 5 Live, said Miranda Sawyer in The Observer; and on his other collaboration with James, "How Do You Cope?", he has proved a deft and insightful interviewer, asking guests how they have overcome various challenges in their lives. This podcast recently moved from the BBC to Wondery, and Robins is now the sole host. In its new incarnation, it is "more earnest" than before, but it's still funny and still great. Two highlights are the episodes with rapper-writer-actor Jordan "Rizzle Kicks" Stephens and Sophie Willan, the writer and star of "Alma's Not Normal". "Both discuss with intelligence and insight how their backgrounds have affected how they think, feel and, yes, cope."

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.

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".

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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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.