Good Robot to Good Hang with Amy Poehler: 10 of the best podcasts of 2025 so far

From beloved British humorists and "good hangs" to AI debates and the history of heroism, BBC features journalists pick their favourite podcasts of the year for you to listen to and watch.

Vale Javari

Missing in the Amazon (The Guardian)

Deep in the Brazilian Amazon, the remote Javari Valley is rife with illegal mining, environmental crimes and Indigenous communities battling for their own survival. That's what led British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous defender Bruno Pereira there in 2022, when they suddenly disappeared. This excellent investigation into their murders is a true crime podcast in only the literal sense. Avoiding the often-exploitative pitfalls of the genre, it's far more about who they were in life – and why they undertook the risks they did – than how they died. It's sensitively, often emotionally, handled by Guardian journalist Tom Phillips, a friend (but not a relative) of Dom. In just six episodes it manages to concisely explain the wider geopolitical crimes and complications that led them there in the first place – as well as trying to solve the many unanswered questions around their deaths. (Tom Heyden)

Listen on The Guardian

Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky (Wondery)

Once shamed and vilified, Monica Lewinsky has since set about rebuilding her life and reclaiming her own narrative. In the first episode of her aptly titled podcast, Lewinsky is her own guest, as she explores arrestingly the aftermath of her 1998 affair with the then US President Bill Clinton, describing how she survived the scandal and her pariah status. In the episodes that follow she is in the host's chair, chatting to guests – including Ronan Farrow, Miley Cyrus and Chelsea Handler – with particular attention to moments of trauma they have experienced. Lewinsky has an engaging, sweary style that makes for a good rapport with her interviewees and some funny and moving moments. (Lindsay Baker) 

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

Charlie's Place podcast

Charlie's Place (Atlas Obscura/ Pushkin)

Charlie Fitzgerald was the charismatic proprietor of a legendary but now largely forgotten nightclub in the sultry seaside resort of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, which through the late-1930s, 40s and 50s attracted every black music luminary from Little Richard and Marvin Gaye to Billie Holliday and Otis Redding. Years before desegregation, Charlie's Place ignored the South's "Jim Crow" laws, providing a space for black and white people to dance together. This five-part series attempts to unlock the mystery of the complex, Gatsbyesque Charlie, speaking to local characters who remember the time, and the events that lead up to the night he is brutally attacked by the Ku Klux Klan. With a rich soundscape and lively narration by film-maker Rhym Guissé, Charlie's Place explores the joyful and terrifying extremes of US history through one man's life. It's a bewitching – and moving – listen. (Rebecca Laurence)

Listen on Pushkin, Apple Podcasts or Spotify

Stalked (BBC)

Following the likes of Sweet Bobby and Can I Tell You a Secret?, Stalked offers another disturbing, compelling account of online deception – journeying through one woman's experience of being cyber-stalked, and digging into who the culprit may be, in a way that is both starkly candid and deeply sensitive. The podcast benefits from the coincidence at its core – that its subject, stalking victim Hannah Mossman Moore, happened to be the ex-stepdaughter of top investigative reporter Carole Cadwalladr, who pitched the story to the BBC. The grim subject matter is offset by Cadwalladr and Mossman Moore's warm, familiar banter – but grim it still is, a story that speaks to an experience which is all-too-prevalent. As an extraordinarily upsetting episode centring on another victim, the late Alice Ruggles, makes clear, the response of the police and otherwise has often been inadequate. The hope must be that this podcast helps to move the needle. (Hugh Montgomery) 

Listen on BBC Sounds in the UK or Apple Podcasts outside the UK

Signal Hill (Signal Hill)

An independent "audio magazine", Signal Hill is an experiment that stands out in an era when every new show seems to be another true crime or celebrity-hosted chit chat. Like the print magazines that used to dominate our free time, the first issue features eight stories in a wide variety of formats and topics. A woman discovers her family has another, secret group chat she isn't invited to. A historian interviews a former Alabama sharecropper – who doesn't own a phone – about his time as a radical union organiser in the 1930s. A scientist forms an unlikely friendship with a 12-year-old Japanese insect fanatic. Their bond leads to new discoveries about caterpillars' ability to form memories. Signal Hill harks back to the 2010s podcasting boom, when the world of audio was artistic and fresh, and every new episode felt like doorway to a new world. (Thomas Germain)

Listen on Signalhill.fm

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The World of Wodehouse (PG Wodehouse Society UK)

Beloved British author and humorist PG Wodehouse is best known for novels featuring the aristocratic Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves, in which high drama is wrought from buying the wrong top hat or the repeated kidnapping of a prized pig. On the 50th anniversary of the author's death, British comedian and president of the PG Wodehouse Society UK, Alexander Armstrong, introduces an array of prominent fans, who share their formative Wodehouse experiences. The actor Stephen Fry carries a signed photo of the author with him on set, comedian Ben Elton is gifted a collection entitled "Eggs, Beans and Crumpets" on his 11th birthday, and writer Lynne Truss spoils a septuagenarian's golf game with a Wodehouse quote. A true joy. (Rob Freeman)

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts

Lucky Boy (The Lab Detective/ Tortoise Investigates)

In north London in the late-1980s, a 14-year-old boy was sexually abused by a 27-year-old female teacher. Rumours flew, but people were more inclined to smirk about the crime than to take it seriously – and even today, many of the victim's contemporaries shrug that he was "lucky" to have been bedded by a blonde beauty. This four-part series, written and presented by journalist Chloe Hadjimatheou, is a sensitive, in-depth study of society's confused attitudes towards abuse. It's also the heartbreaking story of a man, now in his 50s, who was profoundly damaged by the woman he saw as his first love. (Nicholas Barber)

Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

Good Robot (Vox)

This four-part series from Vox's Future Perfect and Unexplainable teams delves into the world of AI and the people warning about its impacts. At first glance it's a 101 guide to how far AI technology has come over the past decade or so, with host Julia Longoria beginning at a place of relative ignorance to guide us through how intelligent present-day large-language models such as ChatGPT really are – and how future systems are to bring harm or good to humanity. But at its heart this podcast is about the subcultures that have formed around the thorny debates AI is bringing up, from the "rationalists" and their thought experiments about robots someday turning the entire world into paper clips, to the "ethicists" more concerned about present-day harms AI is already inflicting. (Jocelyn Timperley)

Listen on Vox and Apple Podcasts

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Good Hang with Amy Poehler (The Ringer)

Having conquered improv comedy, television and film, actress and comedian Amy Poehler has turned her attention to a new arena. With the Good Hang podcast, Poehler draws upon her years of experience and friendships cultivated in the entertainment industry, chatting with the likes of Tina Fey, Martin Short, Dakota Johnson and Michelle Obama. The show is stacked with questions about careers, family and wellbeing, with Poehler leveraging her signature humour and infectious laugh to disarm her guests. Good Hang wholly succeeds in the mission promised by its title – making you feel like you're in a room hanging out with your closest friends.(Francis Agustin)

Watch on The Ringer or YouTube. Listen on Spotify

Rory Stewart: The Long History of Heroism (BBC)

British politician and diplomat Rory Stewart begins his five-part exploration of what it means to be a hero with an embarrassing admission – for much of his youth and early adulthood, he longed to be Alexander the Great, sacrificing his life for a noble cause. Yet this classical notion of heroism has little place in today's complex world, Stewart argues, in this latest series of his Long History of… podcast. He takes the audience on a journey through more than 3,000 years to trace the evolution of heroism, starting with Achilles and ending with Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky. In an age of superheroes and social media, are there any heroes left, or has something crucial about the human flaws required to be a hero been lost to history? (Richard Gray)

Listen on BBC Sounds in the UK or BBC.com outside the UK

For more culture from the BBC, these are the best films and tv shows of 2025 so far.

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