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This American Life

179 episodes - English - Latest episode: 1 day ago - ★★★★★ - 82.4K ratings

Each week we choose a theme. Then anything can happen. This American Life is true stories that unfold like little movies for radio. Personal stories with funny moments, big feelings, and surprising plot twists. Newsy stories that try to capture what it’s like to be alive right now. It’s the most popular weekly podcast in the world, and winner of the first ever Pulitzer Prize for a radio show or podcast. Hosted by Ira Glass and produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago.

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Episodes

826: Unprepared for What Has Already Happened

March 17, 2024 22:00 - 1 hour

People waking up to the fact that the world has suddenly changed. Prologue: Jackson Landers tells the story of a very strange decision he made one summer day. (6 minutes) Act One: Elena Kostyuchenko tells the story of how she was probably poisoned after reporting on Russian’s invasion of Ukraine, and how she kept not believing it was happening. Bela Shayevich translated this story from Russian and reads it for us. (21 minutes) Act Two: A recording of comedian Tig Notaro in the process of ...

304: Heretics

March 10, 2024 23:00 - 59 minutes

The story of Reverend Carlton Pearson. He was a rising star in the evangelical movement when he cast aside the idea of hell and, with it, everything he'd worked for over his entire life. Carlton Pearson's church, Higher Dimensions, was once one of the biggest in the city, drawing crowds of 5,000 people every Sunday. But several years ago, scandal engulfed the reverend. He didn't have an affair. He didn't embezzle lots of money. His sin was something that to a lot of people is far worse: He ...

825: Yousef

March 03, 2024 23:00 - 1 hour

A series of phone calls to a man in Gaza named Yousef Hammash, between early December and now. He talks about what he and his family are experiencing, sometimes as they are experiencing it. Act One: Over the course of one week in December, Yousef tries to get his sisters to safety, in Rafah. (29 minutes) Act Two: Yousef is managing a camp of 60 people in Rafah, including his youngest sister, who is 8 months pregnant. Every day there’s talk that Israel will launch a ground assault in Rafah....

824: Family Meeting

February 25, 2024 23:00 - 58 minutes

Your mother and I have something we want to talk with you about. Prologue: A family sits down to discuss one thing. But then the true purpose of the meeting emerges. (9 ½ minutes) Act One: For one kibbutz-dwelling family in Israel, the decision of where to land after the October 7th attacks goes back and forth… and back… and forth. (28 minutes) Act One: For one kibbutz-dwelling family in Israel, the decision of where to land after the October 7th attacks goes back and forth… and back… and...

653: Crime Scene

February 18, 2024 23:00 - 1 hour

Every crime scene hides a story. In this week's show, we hear about crime scenes and the stories they tell. Medical Examiner D.J. Drakovic, in Pontiac Michigan, explains how every crime scene is like a novel. (5 minutes) Act One: Reporter Nancy Updike spends two days with Neal Smither, who cleans up crime scenes for a living, and comes away wanting to open his Los Angeles franchise, despite the gore — or maybe because of it. (12 minutes) Act Two: Actor Matt Malloy reads a short story by A...

791: Math or Magic?

February 11, 2024 23:00 - 56 minutes

When it comes to finding love, there seems to be two schools of thought on the best way to go about it. One says, wait for that lightning-strike magic. The other says, make a calculation and choose the best option available. Who has it right? Prologue: When guest host Tobin Low was looking for a husband, he got opposing advice from two of the most important people in his life, his mom and his best friend. (8 minutes) Act One: Zarna Garg had a clear plan for how she was going to find a husb...

823: The Question Trap

February 04, 2024 23:00 - 57 minutes

An investigation of when and why people ask loaded questions that are a proxy for something else. Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks with producer Tobin Low about the question he got asked after he and his husband moved in together, and what he thinks people were really asking. (4 minutes) Act One: “What do you think about Beyoncé?” and other questions that are asked a lot, raised by people on first dates. (12 minutes) Act Two: When a common, seemingly innocuous question goes wildly off the r...

822: The Words to Say It

January 28, 2024 23:00 - 58 minutes

What it means to have words—and to lose them. Prologue: Sometimes we don’t want to say what’s going on because putting it into words would make it real. At other times, words don’t seem to capture the weight of what we want to say. Susanna Fogel talks about her friend Margaret Riley, who died earlier this week. (6 minutes) Act One: The story of a woman from Gaza City who ran out of words. Seventy-two days into the war, Youmna stopped talking. (27 minutes) Act Two: For years there was a wo...

821: Embrace the Suck

January 21, 2024 23:00 - 58 minutes

People finding themselves in situations that are worse than they thought and deciding to really go with it. Prologue: A Boston woman takes her dog for a walk and suddenly finds herself in a terrible situation she never anticipated. The strange thing is, it helps her. (9 minutes) Act One: Two college friends try to stop Donald Trump’s primary season momentum by convincing New Hampshire voters to vote against everything they care about. Producer Zoe Chace follows along. (22 minutes) Act Two...

820: It Wouldn’t Be Make-Believe If You’d Believe In Me

December 24, 2023 23:00 - 1 hour

A major political party in a major swing state bets on a new leader: a total political outsider. How does that work out for them? Prologue: In 2022, Michigan Republicans ran anti-establishment candidates who claimed the last presidential election was stolen. And they lost big. Now, the state party regroups and must decide whether to stay the course or moderate. (7 minutes) Act One: The Michigan GOP’s newly elected leader, Kristina Karamo, faces her first big test: Can she organize and pull...

819: Special Bonus Podcast — Yousef’s Week

December 22, 2023 23:00 - 42 minutes

A series of conversations with a man in Gaza over the course of one week. Act One: One of our producers, Chana Joffe-Walt, had a series of conversations with a man in Gaza over the course of one week. They're so immediate – and particular to this moment in the war in Gaza – that we're bringing them to you now, outside of our regular schedule. Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

818: Stand Clear of the Closing Doors

December 17, 2023 23:00 - 1 hour

In the last year and a half, New York City has scrambled to try and provide shelter and services to over 150,000 migrants. We take a look at how that’s going. Prologue: In the middle of the night, host Ira Glass meets a woman on a mission at Port Authority bus station. (13 minutes) Act One: Producer Valerie Kipnis follows a group of people who’ve just arrived at their new home, a tent shelter in the middle of nowhere. (11 minutes) Act Two: Producer Diane Wu talks to an asylum seeker tryin...

817: The Cavalry Is Not Coming

December 03, 2023 23:00 - 59 minutes

When you realize that help is not on the way, what do you do next? Prologue: Saddam Sayyaleh’s job right now is trying to get trucks filled with aid into Gaza and he knows it’s nowhere close to what’s actually needed. (10 minutes) Act One: Tim Reeves runs a hospital in rural Pennsylvania, and he’s trying to do something that is so hard to do and that he knows is completely up to him. (11 minutes) Act Two: One of our producers, Nadia Reiman, talked to officials who work in the asylum and r...

789: The Runaround

January 22, 2023 23:00 - 1 hour

People being dodged, delayed, and evaded—and what they do to put an end to it.

174: Birthdays, Anniversaries, and Milestones

January 15, 2023 23:00 - 1 hour

They mean something, whether we want them to or not.

788: Half-Baked Stories About My Dead Mom

January 08, 2023 23:00 - 1 hour

Writer Etgar Keret tries to come up with the stories that capture his late mother, Orna Keret—but it’s hard, he says, because she’s like Maria in West Side Story and she’s also like Thanos from the Avengers. He ends up with a series of very short stories — most just a few paragraphs long — that give glimpses of different sides of her. These written stories are interspersed with off-the-cuff stories he tells host Ira Glass. 

598: My Undesirable Talent

January 01, 2023 23:00 - 1 hour

San Francisco’s Spider-Man burglar was remarkable. He dropped into buildings from skylights, leapt 10 feet from one roof to another. But mostly, his talent got him into trouble. This week, his story, and stories of other undesirable talents.

787: Baby's First Christmas

December 25, 2022 23:00 - 58 minutes

People experiencing Christmas in brand new ways, giving the holiday even more meaning.

786: It's a Game Show!

December 04, 2022 23:00 - 1 hour

Something we’ve never done before: true stories told in the form of a game show.

785: Through the Looking Glass

November 27, 2022 23:00 - 1 hour

People trying to coax each other across the line, from one side to the other.

784: Mapmaker, Mapmaker, Make Me a Map

November 06, 2022 22:00 - 1 hour

Not long ago, Republicans in Ohio passed a constitutional amendment to end gerrymandering in the state. And then a funny thing happened. The same Ohio Republicans drew electoral maps that violated their own constitutional amendment. They’ll be using them in this week’s midterm elections. We try to understand how that could happen.

783: Kids These Days

October 30, 2022 22:00 - 1 hour

We hear from kids who are dealing with some of the country’s most contentious debates. Debates that are supposedly about them.

782: Family Dig

October 16, 2022 22:00 - 1 hour

Two people go on excavations of their families’ pasts. Including the first episode of the new podcast, “We Were Three,” hosted by our longtime producer, Nancy Updike, and from Serial Productions and The New York Times.

102: Road Trip!

August 21, 2022 22:00 - 59 minutes

With so many songs, movies, and books about the joy of the open road, it's hard to take just a normal road trip without huge expectations.

777: Name. Age. Detail.

August 14, 2022 22:00 - 1 hour

Ten people were killed at a grocery store in Buffalo, NY. Their stories, as you’ve never heard them.

625: Essay B

August 07, 2022 22:00 - 59 minutes

In 1967, the first two Black students were enrolled at an all-white private boarding school in Virginia. The main reason they were there? To benefit the white kids.

776: I Work Better on Deadline

July 31, 2022 22:00 - 1 hour

Stories of people racing against time to solve a problem. Will they make it? 

109: Notes on Camp

July 24, 2022 22:00 - 59 minutes

People who love summer camp say that non-camp people simply don't understand what's so amazing about it. We attempt to bridge this gap of misunderstanding between camp people and non-camp people.

400: Stories Pitched by Our Parents

July 17, 2022 22:00 - 1 hour

We try something harder than anything we've ever tried before, by taking the random ideas that members of our own families have told us would be "perfect for the show," and turning them into actual stories.

775: The Possum Experiment

July 10, 2022 22:00 - 1 hour

An investigation into a very basic question about people: Are most of us bad or good?

774: The Pink House at the Center of the World

July 03, 2022 22:00 - 1 hour

The Supreme Court case that overturned Roe v. Wade began with a lawsuit filed by a Mississippi abortion clinic. On the day Roe was overturned, we were there. Stories from the center of this moment of history, the day it happened.

583: It’ll Make Sense When You’re Older

June 26, 2022 22:00 - 58 minutes

Kids do not like being told it’ll make sense when they’re older. They’re pretty sure the grown-ups are wrong.

773: The Longest Distance Between Two Points

June 19, 2022 22:00 - 1 hour

Getting from A to B via Z.

672: No Fair!

June 12, 2022 22:00

Stories of very small injustices and also one very big one.

772: The Kids' Table

June 05, 2022 22:00 - 1 hour

Kids navigating hairy situations all on their own, with no help from grown-ups.

771: The Parents Step In

May 29, 2022 22:00 - 1 hour

Government isn’t doing much to prevent school shootings. So parents are jumping in: parents whose kids have died in mass shootings, in the wake of each shooting. They take practical, effective action — and they get results.

638: Rom-Com

May 22, 2022 22:00

The one thing you know for sure when you're watching a romantic comedy is that it's going to turn out okay in the end. When you're living one? Not so much. This week, stories that unfold like rom-coms.

605: Kid Logic

May 15, 2022 22:00

Kids using perfectly logical arguments, and arriving at perfectly wrong conclusions.

770: My Lying Eyes

May 08, 2022 22:00 - 1 hour

People staring squarely at the truth, and still finding it hard to believe what they’re seeing.

769: The Reluctant Explorer

May 01, 2022 22:00 - 58 minutes

A man finds himself thrust into a new world he didn’t necessarily ask to visit. He takes a look around.

768: The Other Front Lines

April 24, 2022 22:00 - 1 hour

Four personal stories from the war in Ukraine.

360: Switched at Birth

April 17, 2022 22:00

On a summer day in 1951, two baby girls were born in a hospital in small-town Wisconsin. The infants were accidentally switched, and went home with the wrong families.

767: Do Not Go Gentle

April 10, 2022 22:00 - 59 minutes

In this moment when autocrats and almost-autocrats are getting bolder and more powerful, we bring you two stories of resistance, from Hungary and Russia.

766: Well Someone Had to Do SOMETHING!

April 03, 2022 22:00

People trying to jump in and solve other people's problems, putting themselves directly in the gap between the problem and the solution. 

523: Death and Taxes

March 27, 2022 22:00

It is a peculiar feeling to know with certainty that something big is about to happen to you. This week, we watch people go right up to the edge of inevitable change.

765: Off Course

March 20, 2022 22:00

Three people, and one animal, who know the path their lives will take until, suddenly, they don’t.

764: School's Out Forever

March 13, 2022 23:00

The pandemic broke school. Can we ever go back?

175: Babysitting

March 06, 2022 23:00

What goes on while mom and dad are away, that mom and dad never find out about. Including the story of two teenagers who decide to invent children to babysit, as an excuse to get out of their own house.

763: The Other Mr. President

February 27, 2022 23:00

Stories about Vladimir Putin. Did he come to power in 1999 by killing hundreds of innocent Russians? How’s he really seen in his home country? This show is a mix of old and new stories we’ve done about him. 

466: Blackjack

February 20, 2022 23:00

The casino game everyone thinks they can beat.