The best podcasts like Serial in 2026 are S-Town, In the Dark, Bone Valley, Up and Vanished, and Root of Evil.
Each show shares Serial’s core formula: one true story stretched across a full season, a host who investigates the case in real time rather than narrating from a finished script, and a central mystery that stays genuinely unresolved until the final episode.
Serial changed audio journalism when it launched in October 2014. Sarah Koenig’s investigation into the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee earned the show a Peabody Award, the first ever given to a podcast, and the series has since been downloaded more than 420 million times, making it the most listened-to podcast in the medium’s history, according to NPR’s reporting on the show. That kind of reach created lasting demand for podcast series like Serial: narrative, serialized, and led by a host willing to sit inside the ambiguity of a real case instead of tying it up neatly.
Research backs up how deep that demand runs. True crime is now the single most common topic among top-ranked U.S. podcasts, appearing in 24% of shows that regularly chart on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, according to Pew Research Center. Edison Research separately found that weekly true crime podcast listenership nearly tripled between 2019 and 2024, climbing from 6.7 million to 19.1 million adults. The genre is not a niche anymore. It is one of the largest audiences in podcasting, and the list below is built for the specific corner of it that Serial created.
The podcasts here are grouped by which part of the Serial formula they lean into hardest: the season-long deep dive, the fight against a wrongful conviction, the host’s personal stake in the story, or a faster case-of-the-week format for listeners who want the true crime feel without a multi-week commitment.
Podcasts Like Serial at a Glance
| Podcast | Host(s) | Best For | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| S-Town | Brian Reed | A character study wrapped in a mystery | One season, 7 chapters |
| In the Dark | Madeleine Baran | Investigative journalism with real legal impact | New season per case |
| Bone Valley | Gilbert King, Kelsey Decker | Wrongful conviction deep dives | New season per case |
| Up and Vanished | Payne Lindsey | Real-time cold case investigation | New season per case |
| Root of Evil | Yvette Gentile, Rasha Pecoraro | A historical mystery told by the victim's family | Single season |
| Your Own Backyard | Chris Lambert | A missing persons case that changed its outcome | Single season |
| Wrongful Conviction | Jason Flom | First-person exoneree interviews | Weekly, standalone |
| The Clearing | April Balascio, Josh Dean | A host investigating her own father | Single season |
| Dr. Death | Laura Beil | Medical malpractice true crime | New season per case |
| Crime Junkie | Ashley Flowers, Brit Prawat | Fast, episodic true crime | Weekly, standalone |
| Casefile | Anonymous host | Research-heavy, no-frills case files | Weekly, standalone |
| Criminal | Phoebe Judge | Character-focused crime storytelling | Weekly, standalone |
(Full list of 17 podcasts, with details, continues below.)
How We Selected These Podcasts
Four criteria determined which shows made this list of podcasts similar to Serial. First, structural similarity: does the show commit to one story across a season, or does its host drive the investigation personally, rather than simply reading a script written by someone else? Second, journalistic rigor: has the show earned recognition from outlets like the Peabody Awards or The New York Times, or has its reporting influenced an actual legal outcome? Third, the strength of the host-listener bond, since Serial’s intimacy with Sarah Koenig’s own doubts was part of what made it work. Fourth, audience reception, measured by chart performance and critical coverage over time.
The Best Podcasts Like Serial for Season-Long Investigations
These are the podcast series like Serial that commit an entire season to a single story, letting listeners marinate in details across many hours rather than a single sitting.
1. S-Town
Brian Reed traveled to Woodstock, Alabama, after a listener named John B. McLemore asked him to investigate a rumored murder cover-up involving a wealthy local family. The alleged crime never held up under reporting. What emerged instead was an intimate portrait of McLemore, a self-taught horologist wrestling with isolation, mercury poisoning, and a hometown he both loved and resented. Produced by Serial’s own team at Serial Productions and This American Life, S-Town set an Apple Podcasts download record within its first four days of release.
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2. In the Dark
Madeleine Baran and the APM Reports team built this show around cases where the justice system had already failed once. Season one re-examined the 1989 abduction of Jacob Wetterling in Minnesota. Season two dismantled the case against Curtis Flowers, a Mississippi man tried six times for the same quadruple homicide; the reporting is widely credited with contributing to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to review his conviction. The show has won a Peabody Award for its investigative work.
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3. Bone Valley
Pulitzer Prize winner Gilbert King, joined by producer Kelsey Decker, spent years reinvestigating the 1987 murder of Michelle Schofield in Florida. Her husband, Leo Schofield, was convicted and has maintained his innocence for more than three decades, even as another man came forward to confess. A third season, subtitled Graves County, applies the same forensic scrutiny to an unrelated case. Few true crime podcasts like Serial match Bone Valley’s combination of legal detail and narrative pacing.
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4. Up and Vanished
Payne Lindsey does not just report cold cases; he actively works them. Season one followed his real-time investigation into the disappearance of Tara Grinstead, a South Georgia teacher missing since 2005, and the attention it generated led directly to two arrests. Later seasons cover Kristal Reisinger in Colorado, Ashley Loring HeavyRunner on the Blackfeet Nation reservation, and multiple disappearances from Nome, Alaska.
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5. Root of Evil: The True Story of the Hodel Family and the Black Dahlia
Sisters Yvette Gentile and Rasha Pecoraro use family archives and their own memories to investigate whether their great-grandfather, Dr. George Hodel, was responsible for the unsolved 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia. The personal stakes set it apart from most true crime shows: the hosts are not outside reporters but descendants confronting a legacy they inherited.
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6. Your Own Backyard
Journalist Chris Lambert spent more than a year independently investigating the 1996 disappearance of Cal Poly student Kristin Smart. His reporting revived public and law enforcement interest in the case after two decades of inaction, and Paul Flores was convicted of Smart’s murder in 2022. It stands as one of the clearest examples of a podcast similar to Serial that changed the outcome of the case it covered.
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The Best Podcast Like Serial for Wrongful Conviction Stories
Serial’s first season centered on whether Adnan Syed was wrongfully convicted, and that question shaped an entire subgenre. These four shows carry that thread forward most directly.
7. Wrongful Conviction
Hosted by Jason Flom, founder of the criminal justice nonprofit Lava for Good, this weekly series interviews people who spent years, sometimes decades, in prison for crimes they did not commit. Unlike the season-long shows above, each episode stands alone, making it an efficient way to understand how wrongful convictions happen across dozens of different cases and states.
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8. Someone Knows Something
Canadian filmmaker David Ridgen has produced eight seasons for CBC, each centered on a cold case where a family is still searching for answers. Ridgen works alongside relatives of the missing or murdered rather than positioning himself as a detached outside expert, which gives the show a different emotional register than most true crime podcasts like Serial.
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9. Convicted
This series examines the 1996 conviction of Richard Nicolas for the murder of his four-year-old daughter, a case where the physical evidence at trial has since drawn sustained scrutiny from journalists and legal advocates. The show lays out the original prosecution and the case for reconsideration side by side.
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10. Accused
Produced by the Cincinnati Enquirer, Accused rotates through a different contested conviction or unresolved case each season. One installment reexamines whether Elwood Jones, convicted of a 1994 hotel murder in Ohio largely on the basis of a hand injury, deserves a new trial after three decades on death row.
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The Best Podcast Like Serial for Personal, Host-Driven Investigations
Sarah Koenig was not a neutral narrator. Her doubts, her frustration, and her evolving theories were part of the story, and these shows push that same personal investment even further.
11. The Clearing
April Balascio grew up suspecting her father, Edward Wayne Edwards, was capable of violence. As an adult, she tipped off police, which eventually connected him to multiple homicides across several states. Working with journalist Josh Dean for Gimlet Media, Balascio narrates an investigation into her own family, a vantage point no outside reporter could replicate.
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12. Dr. Death
Host: Laura Beil
Journalist Laura Beil, working with Wondery, tells the story of Christopher Duntsch, a Texas neurosurgeon convicted of maiming and killing patients through what prosecutors described as reckless surgical practice. Thirty-one of his patients were injured and two died before the medical board intervened. Later seasons apply the same format to other cases of medical malpractice.
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13. Dirty John
Los Angeles Times reporter Christopher Goffard, also distributed through Wondery, chronicles how interior designer Debra Newell fell for a man whose charm concealed a long history of deception and violence. The reporting draws on court records, interviews, and firsthand access that gives the show more documentary weight than typical true crime storytelling.
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14. The Shrink Next Door
Journalist Joe Nocera lived near the real people at the center of this story: a psychiatrist known as Ike who treated prominent patients while allegedly manipulating a vulnerable neighbor out of his own home over several decades. Nocera’s personal proximity to the events, later adapted into an Apple TV+ series, gives the podcast a reporter’s access most true crime shows never get.
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The Best True Crime Podcasts Like Serial for a Quick Case-of-the-Week Fix
Not every listener wants a multi-week commitment. These shows keep Serial’s investigative tone while wrapping up each case in a single episode.
15. Crime Junkie
Since 2017, Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat have built Crime Junkie into a repeat chart-topper on Apple Podcasts’ True Crime category, releasing a new case every week through their independent network, audiochuck. It is the most accessible entry point on this list for listeners who want the true crime genre without Serial’s season-long structure.
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16. Casefile
Produced anonymously out of Australia since 2016, Casefile is built around dense, meticulously sourced research rather than personality-driven hosting. Ad breaks are voiced by a separate narrator specifically to preserve the host’s anonymity, an unusual production choice that reinforces the show’s just-the-facts approach.
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17. Criminal
Phoebe Judge and Lauren Spohrer have released a weekly episode about crime, and the people connected to it, since 2014. The New York Times named Criminal a Best Podcast of 2023, citing its willingness to explore crime from unexpected angles rather than defaulting to a formulaic whodunit structure.
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Which Podcast Like Serial Should You Start With?
Listeners chasing the exact feel of Serial’s first season, one mystery, one host, twelve weeks of doubt, should start with S-Town or In the Dark. Anyone drawn specifically to the wrongful conviction angle will get more out of Bone Valley or Wrongful Conviction. Readers who want a weekend binge instead of a slow burn should treat S-Town, In the Dark, and Bone Valley as the best Serial podcasts to marathon in a single sitting, since each is a complete, self-contained season. For a lower-commitment entry point, Crime Junkie or Criminal deliver the true crime tone without asking for a multi-week relationship with one case.
Frequently Asked Questions
What podcast is most like Serial?
S-Town is most often named as the podcast most like Serial, since Serial’s own production team, Serial Productions and This American Life, made it using the same reported, single-narrative structure. In the Dark and Bone Valley come closest for listeners who want that format applied to an active legal case rather than a completed one.
What makes a podcast similar to Serial?
A podcast similar to Serial commits a full season to one true story instead of covering a new case every episode, follows a host who investigates directly rather than narrating from a finished script, and leaves listeners with genuine ambiguity about guilt, innocence, or what actually happened.
Are there podcasts like Serial about wrongful convictions?
Yes. Bone Valley, Wrongful Conviction, and Convicted each focus on cases where the convicted person maintains innocence. Bone Valley and In the Dark are both linked to real legal outcomes, including the Supreme Court’s review of Curtis Flowers’s conviction after In the Dark’s second season aired.
What is the best true crime podcast series like Serial for beginners?
Crime Junkie offers the most accessible starting point for listeners who want the true crime genre without a season-long commitment, since each episode resolves in under an hour. Listeners who want Serial’s exact format instead of a lighter entry point should start with S-Town.
Is S-Town a true crime podcast?
S-Town began as an investigation into an alleged murder cover-up but evolved into a character study once that claim failed to hold up under reporting. Podcast directories still list it under true crime and society & culture because of its investigative origin and structure.
How many episodes does Serial's first season have?
Serial’s first season, covering the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee and the conviction of Adnan Syed, ran for 12 episodes between October and December 2014.
Where can I listen to podcasts like Serial?
Every podcast in this guide is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and each show’s own website. Most, including Wrongful Conviction and Someone Knows Something, are free to stream with advertising support.
Does Serial still add new seasons?
Serial Productions, now operating under The New York Times, continues to release new investigative series under the Serial banner and beyond it, including S-Town and other narrative journalism projects, though not on a fixed annual schedule.
