Each week we choose a theme. Then anything can happen. This American Life is true stories that unfold like little movies for radio. Personal stories with funny moments, big feelings, and surprising plot twists. Newsy stories that try to capture what it’s like to be alive right now. It’s the most popular weekly podcast in the world, and winner of the first ever Pulitzer Prize for a radio show or podcast. Hosted by Ira Glass and produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago.
What this show covers
identityparentingeducationnostalgiagriefhealthshort fictionhistorical documentsauthenticationinvestigationtrade secretsCoca-Colabrothersfamilydocumentary storytelling
What listeners will find here
Did This Episode Uncover Coca-Cola’s Original Recipe?
The episode centers on a possible original Coca-Cola recipe and the challenge of proving whether rare materials are genuine. One act follows a 1979 newspaper article that may reveal Coke’s formula, while the other explores a high-stakes story about copies, originals, and authentication.
A twin-brother search for a birth father turns into something stranger and more intimate
Sayre Quevedo’s Reaching Out follows a search for his and his twin brother’s long-lost birth father, who turns out to live just minutes away. The episode spotlights a raw, unusually intimate style of storytelling built from years of recorded conversations.
Nikole Hannah-Jones revisits a defining school choice—with her daughter answering back
School choice, segregation, and parenting collide as Nikole Hannah-Jones returns to the argument that made her famous. In conversations with producer Chana Joffe-Walt and her now-16-year-old daughter Najya, the episode tests memory, principle, and what those choices actually felt like to live through.
Four stories about the strange distance between generations
Intergenerational Space Travel explores how small age gaps can feel like crossing galaxies. From decoding baffling Spotify comments to revisiting an old family wound, a beloved teen job, and a mother-daughter hair battle, the episode looks at what changes across time and what doesn’t.
Three stories about the clues people leave behind after death
Death is the subject here, approached through mysteries that survivors try to solve. The episode moves from a childhood near-disaster to a sister’s search for answers, a strange problem with a dead person’s Facebook account, and a funeral for someone the mourner never knew.
Episodes
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