7 Tear-Jerking Podcasts To Pull at Your Heartstrings

Listen. 2018 was rough. A few weeks ago, I saw posts on Twitter saying Black Panther came out in 2018, and we had the Winter Olympics this year, too. I’ve been messed up about that ever since, because 2018 has felt like it’s been 14 years long.

Sometimes, what you need to feel better is a great comedy podcast. Sometimes, though, let’s be real: you just gotta look dead in the eyes of your sorrows and cry a little.

Here’s a collection of 7 tear-jerking podcasts that will help you do just that. They’re not in any particular order. I was too busy feeling my feelings to rank them (and besides, they’re all great).

1. Terrible, Thanks for Asking

Terrible, Thanks for Asking is the most accurate imagined response to the question, “How are you doing?” From American Public Media, this podcast in an unabashed look into stories of things that have gone truly, fundamentally wrong–and reminding the listener that sometimes, when your life feels like it’s falling apart, you’re not alone. Its brazen, unapologetic look at mental health completely subverts the trend of sensationalizing depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc., instead deciding to tell peoples’ stories with a deep empathetic core.

Listen: Apple | Stitcher | Google

2. The Bright Sessions

The Bright Sessions is an audio fiction about a therapist to the strange and unusual: people whose mental health intersects with their superhuman abilities. The concept sounds X-Men, but it’s much more along the lines of a beautifully-told character study, similar to Friday Night Lights or The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The listener gets to hear each character grow and change through their arc, and each of those characters’ stories is complicated and messy in the way that everyone’s story is complicated and messy. It’s a piece of fiction that will leave you in tears both in empathetic agony for the characters, and in absolute pride–and it’s being adapted not just for TV, but also as a trilogy of novels.

Listen: Apple | Spotify | Stitcher

3. Wolf 359

Wolf 359 might start out silly and fun, but it slowly becomes one of the most dramatic, emotional pieces of audio fiction to date. Wolf 359 follows Doug Eiffel, a crew member aboard the U.S.S. Hephaestus, orbiting just outside of the sun Wolf 359. The more the listener learns about Eiffel and his crew, the stranger and more dire their situation seems, until everything starts going awry. Wolf 359 allows no character to feel too precious and pulls no punches. It takes sharp twists and turns, often leaving you gasping several times an episode. It might not seem like it hits those emotions hard in the early episodes, but trust me, it gets there.

Listen: Apple | Google | RSS

4. 36 Questions

36 Questions is a musical mini-series by Two-Up, the same team that produces Limetown. The story follows a wife trying to reconnect with her estranged husband using the tool that made them fall so completely in love on their first date: the New York Times‘s 36 questions to fall in love. With stunning songs each episodes and phenomenal performances, it’s hard not to fall in love with these characters as they try (and resist trying) to fall back in love with each other. The details about why the two are separated and the wife’s history are tear-inducing enough, but pair that with the question of whether or not they will, or even should, get back together heightens everything.

Listen: Apple | Google | Stitcher | Pocket Casts | RSS

5. The Hyacinth Disaster

The Hyacinth Disaster is an aptly-named audio fiction set aboard the MRS Hyacinth, a mining vessel with a crew stuck in the middle of corporate rivalries for resources–which is made more dangerous and dire when a ship’s captain is kidnapped by a rivaling corporation. In this mini-series, you get to know each crew member before everything goes horribly, horribly wrong. It’s a story that prepares you for the worst, but you still won’t be ready for how hard so much of the plot hits.

Listen: Apple | Stitcher

6. The Adventure Zone

Looking at this recommendation on this list might seem strange. “Isn’t The Adventure Zone a podcast on the comedy network Maximum Fun? Isn’t it hosted by those good good McElroy boys?” Yes. Both of these things are true. It’s also one of the podcast that has made me cry the hardest.

The Adventure Zone is an actual play podcast in which three brothers and their dad play Dungeons & Dragons (or, in more recent episodes, a tabletop platform called Monster of the Week). It’s a hilarious podcast with goofs aplenty, but then suddenly in its third arc, it starts hitting some devastating story. By the time the first campaign ends, it’s hard to get through an entire episode without sobbing, and it becomes something stunningly beautiful. Start it for the jokes, stay for the tears.

Listen: Apple | Stitcher | Spotify

7. The Shadows

The Shadows is Kaitlin Prest’s first project after ending The Heart. In partnership with CBC, this podcast that blurs the lines between fiction and nonfiction is a harsh inquiry about the modern idea of romantic love. Every facet of how we discuss love is called into question, and while the podcast asserts it exists to prove love doesn’t exist (somewhat jokingly), it does something much more complicated, gripping, and heartbreaking along the way. The story follows a fictionalized version of Kaitlin, a puppeteer who falls in love with another puppeteer who she has little in common with other than an incredible chemistry. You can read our full review of The Shadows here.

Listen: Apple | Google | RSS