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
In the Dark
Listeners who want journalism-grade investigation into wrongful convictions, systemic racism, and institutional failures — more 60 Minutes than true crime thriller.
Serial
Anyone interested in journalism, legal procedure, and deep investigative dives into morally ambiguous cases with no easy answers.
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.
Spotlight: Snitch City
The Boston Globe Spotlight Team exposes one police department's rampant abuse of confidential informants — a top critical pick of 2025.
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.
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.
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.
Sweet Bobby
Tortoise Media's definitive account of a years-long catfishing scheme — one of the most-discussed UK true crime podcasts of the decade.
S-Town
From Serial Productions: a man convinced his Alabama town is covering up a murder pulls host Brian Reed into a story that becomes something else entirely.
You Didn't See Nothin
Pulitzer Prize and Peabody Award-winning series in which Yohance Lacour revisits a violent Chicago incident from 25 years earlier that shaped his path into journalism.
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.
Bear Brook
True crime fans fascinated by forensic science, DNA technology, and cold cases with a genuine scientific payoff.
West Cork
True crime fans who love atmospheric investigative journalism, Anglo-Irish tensions, and cases that remain unresolved and fiercely contested decades later.
Murdaugh Murders Podcast
Journalists Mandy Matney and Liz Farrell broke the Murdaugh family saga before it became a national story, and kept reporting it deeper than anyone else.
Pipeline
The Crime Desk's investigation into four professional divers sucked hundreds of feet into a Caribbean oil pipeline in 2022 — and the failing safety standards that put them there.
The Trial of Erin Patterson
The Crime Desk's courtroom coverage of the Erin Patterson 'mushroom murders' trial — one of the biggest cases of the decade.
The Missing Cryptoqueen
BBC journalist Jamie Bartlett tracks down Dr Ruja Ignatova, who persuaded millions to invest in OneCoin before vanishing without a trace.
Manhunt: Finding Kevin Parle
Ex-Flying Squad detective Peter Bleksley runs a live fugitive hunt for BBC Radio 5 Live, tracking a man wanted over two murders.
The Dropout
People interested in tech fraud, startup culture, and white-collar crime; fans of The Dropout TV series who want the deeper journalism behind it.
Death in Ice Valley
True crime fans who love cold case mysteries with an international dimension; people fascinated by forensic identification and the stories hidden in unidentified remains.
Dirty John
True crime fans who love psychological manipulation, con artists, and domestic crime stories with high personal stakes.
I'm Not a Monster
A multi-award-winning BBC investigation into ISIS recruitment, told through the people who were pulled in.
Charlene: Somebody Knows Something
The Crime Desk revisits the 2003 disappearance of 14-year-old Charlene Downes from Blackpool — a case that still has no resolution.
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.
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