Best Serialized True Crime Podcasts
Long-form serialized true crime investigations that unfold over multiple episodes — like a true crime documentary series in audio form.
Serialized true crime podcasts tell a single story across an entire season — unfolding like a novel, with each episode building on the last. The best serialized podcasts create genuine narrative tension and reward patient listening with fully-developed investigations. Here are the highest-rated serialized shows in our database.
24 podcasts — ranked by binge factor
The Thing About Pam
True crime fans who want jaw-dropping courthouse drama; anyone who likes watching a case unravel in real time as new evidence emerges; fans of courtroom true crime with an extraordinary villain at its centre.
Serial
Anyone interested in journalism, legal procedure, and deep investigative dives into morally ambiguous cases with no easy answers.
Uncover (CBC)
True crime fans interested in cults, coercive control, and how dangerous organisations hide in plain sight; those who want original reporting rather than documentary recaps.
Crimetown
True crime fans who want novelistic, character-driven storytelling about organised crime and institutional corruption; listeners who want something that feels as much like great drama as documentary.
Cold
True crime fans who appreciate methodical investigative journalism and are prepared for deeply upsetting content involving family violence.
Slow Burn (Slate)
History buffs and true crime fans who want political crime; listeners who want to understand how America gets to defining moments of corruption and crisis.
Wisecrack
True crime fans looking for something genuinely new and formally innovative; fans of dark comedy who want real substance behind the laughs.
Bone Valley
True crime fans who care deeply about wrongful conviction, prosecutorial failure, and the fight to free innocent people; fans of In the Dark will find this essential.
In the Dark
Listeners who want journalism-grade investigation into wrongful convictions, systemic racism, and institutional failures — more 60 Minutes than true crime thriller.
Bear Brook
True crime fans fascinated by forensic science, DNA technology, and cold cases with a genuine scientific payoff.
Bag Man (MSNBC)
Political history fans; true crime listeners who want to understand how American power insulates its criminals; anyone surprised that Watergate wasn't the only White House crime happening simultaneously.
Up and Vanished
True crime fans who enjoy amateur investigators uncovering new leads in real time; those who want a sense of participatory investigation.
Believed
Listeners who want to understand systemic institutional failure, survivor stories, and how Nassar's abuse was enabled so long; essential for anyone working in safeguarding or sports.
Scamanda
True crime fans fascinated by con artists, medical fraud, and the psychology of long-term deception within close-knit communities.
Wind of Change
True crime-adjacent listeners interested in espionage, Cold War history, and one of the most stranger-than-fiction investigations of the podcast era; fans of Patrick Radden Keefe's journalism.
The Lady Vanishes
A journalist and a daughter search for answers about a missing Australian schoolteacher
The Retrievals
True crime fans interested in medical crime, systemic bias, and the treatment of women in healthcare; essential for anyone who has ever been dismissed by a doctor.
The Teacher's Pet
True crime fans who like journalism-driven investigations with massive real-world impact; anyone fascinated by domestic crime and institutional failure.
Your Own Backyard
Listeners who want investigative true crime with real-world consequence and single-minded, passionate focus from a creator who refused to let a case die.
Dirty John
True crime fans who love psychological manipulation, con artists, and domestic crime stories with high personal stakes.
Dr. Death
True crime fans interested in medical crime, institutional failure, and white-collar predators — compelling for anyone who has ever trusted a doctor blindly.
West Cork
True crime fans who love atmospheric investigative journalism, Anglo-Irish tensions, and cases that remain unresolved and fiercely contested decades later.
Suspect (NPR/Embedded)
True crime fans who want journalism-grade investigation into systemic racial injustice; listeners who followed In the Dark and want more journalism-led true crime.
Last Seen
True crime fans interested in art crime, historical heists, and the murky world of stolen art recovery; anyone who loved the Netflix documentary.
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