Episodes

2d ago

911 calls unlike any we’ve heard before, and other stories about immigration agents sweeping through America. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. Prologue: A collection of 911 calls where you can hear immigration enforcement moving through different cities and leaving chaos in their wake. (9 minutes) Act One: More 911 calls, including people on the line with dispatchers as ICE is chasing them, trying to puzzle out their next moves. (22 minutes) Act Two: Home Depots keep getting raided over and over again in Los Angeles. And day laborers are still showing up in store parking lots to find work every day. So what’s that like? Months and months of that cat and mouse? Anayansi Diaz-Cortes went to find out. (11 minutes) Act Three: Memo Torres tries to build an archive of every person taken by federal agents in Southern California. (11 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org This American Life privacy policy. Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Jan 25

In the new year, stories of people trying a radical approach to solving their problems. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. Prologue: Ira meets two sisters who got into a fight, and then learned a lesson in turning the other cheek. (8 minutes) Act One: A hardened PI works the toughest case of his very young life. (18 minutes) Act Two: Producer Aviva DeKornfeld talks to a man who finds himself the target of vengeful crows. (8 minutes) Act Three: Comedian Josh Johnson wonders if some people should’ve been spanked as kids. (10 minutes) Act Four: Writer Etgar Keret reads his story about a bus driver who refuses to open the doors for late passengers. (9 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org This American Life privacy policy. Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Jan 18

When a joke could get you killed, should you say it anyway? A group of Syrian comedians test the limits of their newfound freedom, a year after the fall of the brutal Assad regime. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. Prologue: Under the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad, comedian Sharief Homsi knew which jokes were too dangerous to say on stage. Now that Syria is under the control of a new government, Sharief and the other comedians of “Styria” set out on a national tour to see how far their comedy can go in this new Syria. (6 minutes) Act One: The comedians test out risky material and get big laughs on early tour dates. It’s going smoothly until they find out that their show scheduled in the conservative city of Hama is in danger of being cancelled. (13 minutes) Act Two: The comedians go to battle with local officials. (18 minutes) Act Three: The comedians try everything they can think of to keep their shows from being cancelled. (20 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org This American Life privacy policy. Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Jan 12

In this special mini-episode -- an extra episode this week! -- we hear from someone in Venezuela with a very specific take on last week's U.S. attack.

Jan 11

People discovering information about their own lives that they did not know, and suddenly everything looks very different. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. Prologue: When Pete turned 18, his dad took him on a drive to reveal a family secret he was finally old enough to know. (11 minutes) Act One: Sometimes, a lore drop comes when you least expect it. That happened to Jake Cornell and his grandmother. Producer Aviva DeKornfeld talked to Jake about it. (14 minutes) Act Two: Ben Austen had a kind of new lore drop happen to him recently. But it was not the clarifying kind of lore drop, where everything suddenly makes sense — it was kind of the opposite. (29 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org This American Life privacy policy. Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Dec 24, 2025

Stories about the intersection of Christmas and retail, originally broadcast in 1996 when our show was only a year old. Including David Sedaris's "Santaland Diaries" about the seasons he spent working as an elf at Macy's.

Dec 21, 2025

How one block in Portland, Oregon became a movie-set war zone that lots of people think is a real war zone. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription — or to give one as a gift! Prologue: What the movie Hearts of Darkness and right-wing influencers have in common. (8 minutes) Act One: Producers Zoe Chace and Suzanne Gaber follow a bunch of right-wing influencers as they search for Antifa in Portland. (31 minutes) Act Two: We meet the so-called leader of Antifa in Portland. (16 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org This American Life privacy policy. Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Dec 7, 2025

When history comes knocking, you have to figure out what to do. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. Prologue: Brittany’s job is to answer anonymous calls and texts from people in the military. This year, she’s gotten more than usual–most of them are wondering about what to do with orders they’ve been given. Or orders they’re afraid they’ll get someday in the future. (9 minutes) Act One: Jad Abumrad tells the story of the "ideological genealogy” of Fela Kuti’s anti-colonial politics–his mother. In late 1940s Nigeria, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti found herself at the center of a big, historical moment: an uprising led by thousands of women selling goods in Nigeria’s markets. Jad goes searching for who she really was, and how she became the person who galvanized a movement when history demanded it of her. (45 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org This American Life privacy policy. Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Nov 23, 2025

What’s in the box? What’s in the $%&ing box?!? Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. Prologue: A class of second graders is handed a sealed box with a mystery object inside. They are supposed to guess what it is, but the lesson goes off the rails. (8 minutes) Act One: A man is hired along with a crew to dig a mysterious hole on the slopes of Mt. Shasta. The hole goes sixty feet down. But what are they looking for? (24 minutes) Act 2: A sparkly mystery. One woman hopes the military-industrial complex is involved. (4 minutes) Act Two: What happens when the full force of the federal government arrives on your block? (14 minutes) Act Three: A comedian finds himself trapped in an uncomfortable mystery in the backseat of a cab. (4 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org This American Life privacy policy. Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Nov 16, 2025

What’s great about living in a family is that everyone sees everything differently. Also, that’s what’s awful about living in a family. We go behind closed doors with two families. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. Prologue: When Heather Gay started taking steps away from Mormonism, she thought it was her secret. That her daughters had no idea. Until she talked to them about their mismatched memories. (17 minutes) Act One: In every house, behind every closed door, a private drama is unfolding. In the Rivera house, the drama comes in the form of a question: should they stay or should they go? This question winds its way around the house until someone finally answers it. (44 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org This American Life privacy policy. Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Nov 9, 2025

Shalom Auslander goes on vacation with his family, suspects the beloved, chatty old man in the room next door is an imposter, and sets out to prove it. This and other stories about the pitfalls of making snap judgments about others. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. Prologue: Amy Roberts thought it was obvious that she was an adult, not a kid, and she assumed the friendly man working at the children's museum knew it too. Unfortunately, the man had Amy pegged all wrong. And by the time she figured it out, it was too late for either of them to save face. Host Ira Glass talks to Amy about the embarrassing ordeal that taught her never to assume she knows what someone else is thinking. (8 minutes) Act One: While riding in a patrol car to research a novel, crime writer Richard Price witnessed a misunderstanding that, for many people, is pretty much accepted as an upsetting fact of life. Richard Price told this story, which he describes as a tale taken from real life and dramatized, onstage at The Moth in New York. (12 minutes) Act Two: There are situations where making judgments about people based on limited information is not only accepted but required. One of those situations is open adoption, where birth mothers actually choose the adoptive parents for their child. Producer Nancy Updike talks to a pregnant woman named Kim, going through the first stage of open adoption: reading dozens of letters from prospective parents, all of whom seem utterly capable and appealing. (6 minutes) Act Three: David Rakoff picks a fight with a hit Broadway show. (6 minutes) Act Four: Shalom Auslander tells the story of the time he went on vacation, pegged the guest in the room next door as an imposter, and devoted his holiday to trying to prove it. Shalom is the author of Feh: a Memoir. (22 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org This American Life privacy policy. Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Nov 2, 2025

America loves winners—now more than ever. But how do you get to a win in 2025 America? We watch someone trying to score a win in a game whose rules are being made up as she plays. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. Prologue: Ira talks to producer Diane Wu about an informal survey she’s done with the staff of This American Life about a phrase Ira says a lot that includes the word “winners.” (8 minutes) Act One: Two people see one of President Trump’s first executive orders and get excited, and then get to work. (46 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org This American Life privacy policy. Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Oct 16, 2025

Ira Glass shares some news about This American Life To sign up as a Life Partner, visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners

Sep 5, 2025

Small human plans that run into much larger obstacles. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription. Prologue: Angela's dad, an accountant, made a spreadsheet to prepare for their family trip to a national park. But there are things you never think to put in a spreadsheet. (7 minutes) Act One: A young couple, excited to start a new chapter in their lives, is suddenly put on a very different trajectory. (30 minutes) Act Two: A sixteen-year-old plans out a prank, and a complete stranger from Honduras ends up in a million-dollar deal. What could go wrong? (25 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org This American Life privacy policy. Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Jul 17, 2025

Ira Glass talks with longtime producer Nancy Updike about the most personal stories they have put on the radio. This is a sample of the bonus episodes we regularly release to our This American Life Partners. To gain access to all the bonus episodes AND help us keep making This American Life, join at thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners .

Oct 16, 2024

Ira Glass has news to share about some things happening here at This American Life. To sign up as a Life Partner, visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners .