Top Documentary Podcasts

Amazing, first-hand survival stories from people who have faced the unimaginable and escaped with their lives.

Climate change is a man-made problem with a feminist solution! Join former Irish President Mary Robinson and comedian Maeve Higgins in this uplifting and fascinating podcast, and meet a host of game-changing women fighting to save all our lives. 

QueerAF is the award-winning (more than a) podcast with beyond-the-binary stories, mini-documentaries and live podcast events about queerness, history, sexuality, gender and identity from the UK's only press-regulated not-for-profit LGBTQIA+ publisher.

QueerAF helps you understand the LGBTQIA+ world and support queer creatives to change the media. All our shows are created by a different budding LGBTQIA+ audio producer who we mentor and support to create an inspiring queer story. As well as a mix of mini-documentaries and limited series, look out for our live podcast specials, with celebrities, activists and inspiring speakers.

The podcast, with its roots and first four seasons in collaboration with National Student Pride, and later seasons with Trans+ History Week gives young queer creatives a crucial leg up on the career ladder. For many, it is their first paid audio commission. Our alumni have gone on to work at some of the UK's biggest media organisati,ons including the BBC, Global and Gaydio.

• Audio Production Awards 2025 'Changemaker' Award - Gold
• ARIAS 2021 'Impact Award' shortlisted
• British Podcast Awards 2020 'Moment Of The Year' - Bronze
• Five British Podcast Awards nominations

Download and take the UK's best LGBTQIA+ inspiring stories podcast with you. Get the show in all the places podcasts exist.

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/podcast/

Sign up as a QueerAF member to listen along ad-free:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/membership/

Try our free weekly newsletter that thousands of readers use to understand the LGBTQIA+ 🏳️‍🌈 headlines, learn new perspectives and stay on top of the latest queer content:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/subscribe/

Get updates about Trans+ History Week, a QueerAF launchpad project:

https://www.wearequeeraf.com/transhistoryweek/

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Decoder Ring is the show about cracking cultural mysteries. In each episode, host Willa Paskin takes a cultural question, object, or habit; examines its history; and tries to figure out what it means and why it matters.

Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen.

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Mike Drop, hosted by former Navy SEAL and bestselling author Mike Ritland, is a no-holds-barred platform that dives deep into the stories and experiences of extraordinary individuals. Known for his candid and unfiltered approach, Mike interviews guests ranging from special operations veterans and elite athletes to renowned authors and thought leaders, offering listeners a exclusive glimpse into the human side of those who have excelled in their fields. Whether it's discussing the intense challenges of combat or the resilience required to overcome personal adversity, Mike Drop provides a space where real conversations happen.

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Out of the Blocks is a uniquely immersive listening experience that emerges from a mosaic of voices and soundscapes on the streets of Baltimore. A custom-tailored score colors and connects this tapestry of stories hidden in plain sight.

Everywhere around us are echoes of the past. Those echoes define the boundaries of states and countries, how we pray and how we fight. They determine what money we spend and how we earn it at work, what language we speak and how we raise our children. From Wondery, host Patrick Wyman, PhD (“Fall Of Rome”) helps us understand our world and how it got to be the way it is.

Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of Tides of History ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app.

A crime journalism podcast series focused on unusual horrors in the hills and hollers of Appalachia.  Created and hosted by Kendall Perkinson and Sarah James McLaughlin. 
Season 1 - Mared & Karen: The WVU Coed Murders
Season 2 - Big Savage: The Death Of Alexander Stevens

Season 3 - Outlandish

Season 4 - Listener Suggestions

Ear Hustle is prison slang for eavesdropping, and that’s what listening to the show feels like: a raw, often funny, and always surprising peek into the reality of life inside prison. 

Hosts Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods co-created the show that launched in 2017 while Earlonne was incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison, where Nigel was a volunteer teaching photography. Since Earlonne’s release in 2018, the show has expanded to include stories from prisons across the state, including the California Institution for Women, as well as stories about getting out of prison and starting over, post-incarceration.

From finding romance, to grappling with a life sentence, to trying to parent via 15-minute phone calls, Ear Hustle stories deliver what This American Life host Ira Glass calls a “"very real” and “untragic” take on prison life. 

Ear Hustle is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent listener-supported podcasts. Discover audio with vision at radiotopia.fm and learn more about Ear Hustle at earhustlesq.com. 

An independent podcast about fear, beauty and the unknown. Since 2012. Hosted by Jeff Emtman and others.

Katie Couric is back on the mic with a new season of intimate, urgent and unexpected conversations – this time with a new twist. Along with her signature in-depth one-on-one interviews, she’ll be joined by a number of special guest-hosts for a series of “Katie Plus One” episodes. Together they’ll get to know some of the world’s most interesting and influential people and explore the big ideas percolating in the zeitgeist--but with a focus on slowing down, diving deep, and connecting with each other, a reprieve from a culture obsessed with hot takes and surface-level small talk. Tune in every Thursday and join Katie Couric and her guests for a conversation that feels like a warm hug and a seat at the table.