RankedTrue Crime

The Best True Crime Podcasts (2026)

Ranked on reporting quality first: original interviews and documents, care for victims and families, and whether the show changed anything. Production and storytelling come second; volume of episodes counts for nothing. Each entry says whether the show is still publishing (checked October 2026) or is a finished series. Canadian shows are well represented because they are among the best.

A community-ranked list on FindBest — currently in the creator's order; no member votes yet. Votes change the order: when members vote, the list is ordered by their votes. How ranking works.

OOlivia Thompson

12 entriesAdded Oct 17, 2026

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In the Dark

Madeleine Baran's team does what most true crime does not: years of reporting on how investigations fail. Season 2 on Curtis Flowers's six trials preceded the U.S. Supreme Court overturning his conviction. Season 3, on the 2005 Haditha killings, won the 2025 Pulitzer for audio reporting. Now with The New Yorker, it released a new season in fall 2026.

4 pros · 2 cons

Stolen

Cree journalist Connie Walker investigates cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people. Season 2, Surviving St. Michael's, about her own father's residential-school experience in Saskatchewan, won the Pulitzer for audio reporting and a Peabody. Season 3, Trouble in Sweetwater, came out in 2025. Spotify said it would not renew the show; no further season had been announced as of October 2026.

4 pros · 2 cons

Serial (Season 1)

Sarah Koenig's 2014 re-examination of the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee and Adnan Syed's conviction created the modern podcast boom. Syed's conviction was vacated in 2022 and reinstated in 2025, with a reduced sentence, so the story never quite ended. The show, now owned by The New York Times, made three later seasons; the latest was 2024.

4 pros · 2 cons

Your Own Backyard

Musician Chris Lambert started this independent series in 2019 on the 1996 disappearance of Cal Poly student Kristin Smart. His reporting brought forward witnesses, and the San Luis Obispo County sheriff publicly credited him after Paul Flores was convicted of her murder in 2022. Proof one careful independent can move a cold case.

4 pros · 2 cons

Criminal

Phoebe Judge and Lauren Spohrer's show, running since 2014, tells crime stories in under 40 minutes, often from odd angles and through people at the edges of a case. No gore, no theorising. Now part of Vox Media, it is still publishing and touring a live show in late 2026.

4 pros · 2 cons

Hunting Warhead

CBC Podcasts and Norway's VG newspaper followed journalists and a white-hat hacker hunting the administrator of a dark-web child-abuse site. Host Daemon Fairless returned for a second season, Hunting the Suicide Salesman, on the international investigation into Mississauga's Kenneth Law. Rigorous, cautious, disturbing.

4 pros · 2 cons

Someone Knows Something

Filmmaker David Ridgen takes one Canadian case per season and follows it with families, often for years. Season 10, launched in March 2026, investigates the 2021 disappearance of Canadian expat Jaclyn Ferland-Smith in Costa Rica. Season 1 began with the 1972 disappearance of three-year-old Adrien McNaughton in Ontario.

4 pros · 2 cons

Uncover

CBC's umbrella feed for investigative seasons by different hosts. 2026 alone brought The Expert Witness, on AI tools used to identify murder suspects, and The Mile Zero Murders, on crimes in Dawson Creek, B.C., with more announced for fall. Quality varies by host, but the best seasons are as good as anything on this list.

4 pros · 2 cons

Casefile True Crime

An Australian show with an anonymous narrator that has told hundreds of cases since 2016 in long, carefully researched, strictly factual episodes. Minimal opinion, no banter, and sources listed for each case. New episodes continued through 2026, with an ad-free Premium tier.

4 pros · 2 cons

S-Town

From the makers of Serial and This American Life, 2017: Brian Reed is called to Woodstock, Alabama, by John B. McLemore to investigate an alleged murder, and the story becomes a portrait of McLemore himself. Seven chapters, finished, and ethically debated ever since for how much of a dead man's private life it reveals.

4 pros · 2 cons

Missing & Murdered

Connie Walker's CBC series that preceded Stolen. Season 1 (2016) investigated the 1989 killing of Alberta Williams in Prince Rupert, B.C.; season 2, Finding Cleo (2018), traced a Cree girl taken in the Sixties Scoop. Finished, and still one of the most important Canadian podcasts ever made.

4 pros · 2 cons

Crime Junkie

Ashley Flowers narrates and Brit Prawat reacts in this weekly show, released Mondays and still among the most-listened podcasts in North America. Accessible and well produced. It has faced plagiarism complaints in its early years and criticism of its conversational tone for serious cases, which is why it ranks here and not higher.

4 pros · 2 cons

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