Best audio drama Podcasts

“Make your statement, face your fear.” A weekly horror fiction podcast examining what lurks in the archives of the Magnus Institute, an organisation dedicated to researching the esoteric and the weird. Join Jonathan Sims as he explores the archive, but be warned, as he looks into its depths something starts to look back… New episodes every Thursday produced by Rusty Quill, featuring guest actors, short stories, serial plots and more. The Magnus Protocol launches in January 2024. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The CryptoNaturalist is a scripted fiction podcast all about real love for imaginary nature. It’s about cryptids and other weird and wild topics. Featuring poetry and field reports to make our world a richer, stranger place. New episodes 1st/15th.

Life's not easy for Doug Eiffel, the communications officer for the U.S.S. Hephaestus Research Station, currently on Day 448 of its orbit around red dwarf star Wolf 359. He's stuck on a scientific survey mission of indeterminate length, 7.8 light years from Earth. His only company on board the station are stern mission chief Minkowski, insane science officer Hilbert, and Hephaestus Station's sentient, often malfunctioning operating system Hera. He doesn't have much to do for his job other than monitoring static and intercepting the occasional decades-old radio broadcast from Earth, so he spends most of his time creating extensive audio logs about the ordinary, day-to-day happenings within the station. But the Hephaestus is an odd place, and life in extremely isolated, zero gravity conditions has a way of doing funny things to people's minds. Even the simplest of tasks can turn into a gargantuan struggle, and the most ordinary-seeming things have a way of turning into anything but that. Wolf 359 is a radio drama in the tradition of Golden Age of Radio shows. Take one part space-faring adventure, add one part character drama, and mix in one part absurdist sitcom, and you get Wolf 359.

Award Winning Sitcom - Start with Season 1 Episode 1Rudyard Funn and his equally miserable sister Antigone run their family's failing funeral parlour, where they get the body in the coffin in the ground on time. But one day they find everyone enjoying themselves at the funerals of a new competitor - the impossibly perfect Eric Chapman! With their dogsbody Georgie, and a mouse called Madeleine, the Funns are taking drastic steps to stay in the business…

Explore the far reaches of the world’s horrors in the audio drama podcast The White Vault. Follow the collected records of a repair team sent to Outpost Fristed in the vast white wastes of Svalbard and unravel what lies waiting in the ice below. This Fool and Scholar production is intended for mature audiences.

Do not fear the dark, fear what darkness brings... Arkham Private Investigator Arthur Lester wakes up with no memory of who he is or what has happened, only a nameless, eerie voice guiding him through the darkness.Blind, terrified, and confused, his journey will lead him towards a series of mysteries in the hopes of understanding the truth of what has transpired.As cosmic horrors seep into the world around, Arthur must ask himself whether this entity truly seeks to help him, or are its intentions more…MalevolentMalevolent is produced, written, edited, performed, scored & created by Harlan Guthrie. This podcast contains mature themes, explicit language, bodily horror, violence, otherworldly terror and death. Listener discretion is advised. Full transcripts of every episode are available here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Gloria took a waitressing job at a diner outside of Phoenix, she didn't realize she was now an employee of Midnight Burger, a time-traveling, dimension-spanning diner. Every day Midnight Burger appears somewhere new in the cosmos along with it's staff: a galactic drifter, a rogue theoretical physicist, a sentient old-timey radio, and some guy named Caspar. No one knows who built Midnight Burger or how it works, but when it appears there's always someone around who could really use a cup of coffee. "When the waves of the universe crash unrelentingly, when the stars seem indifferent to your plight, suddenly there is a diner." We open at 6.

Nothing fancy here — just the simple audio diary of a girl in space. Also, there’s this weird and potentially ominous light in the distance that seems to be growing steadily closer. Listen for science, guns, trust, anti-matter, truth, beauty, inner turmoil, and delicious cheeses. It’s all here. In space.

SERIES COMPLETE. Start with episode 101. Dr. Bright provides therapy for the strange and unusual; their sessions have been recorded for research purposes. Visit www.thebrightsessions.com for more information and additional content. Created by Lauren Shippen

For Army Reserve Soldier Michael Cross, the world as he knew it ended in an instant. One minute, he's in college, and in the next, rioters are roaming the highway around him, breaking into cars, and literally tearing people apart. This is the day the dead walk. This is the world of We're Alive.We’re Alive is an ongoing series, packing performances and sound effects that rival movies and prove that modern audio drama is undead and well. Join our survivors as they band together, struggle to fortify a safe haven known as the Tower, and discovers that zombies are far from the worst thing in a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles where the rules of human decency no longer apply.We premiere 3 New episodes a month, with a week off between chapters.Little food. Little water. Little hope. Who is lucky enough to say "We're Alive?"

The Amelia Project is a secret agency that fakes its clients' deaths, then lets them reappear with a brand new identity! A black comedy full of secrets, twists... and cocoa. The series starts as a succession of interviews with clients who want to fake their deaths, then slowly a larger narrative begins to emerge... Each episode tells its own story, but we recommend starting with Season 1.

Doctors in space, a deposed alien prince, a super gay space pirate and a fiery nurse who’ll help you win your bar fight.

'We Fix Space Junk' follows seasoned smuggler Kilner and reluctant fugitive Samantha as they travel the galaxy, dodging bullets and meeting strange and wonderful beings as they carry out odd jobs on the fringes of the law.A female-led sci-fi comedy sitcom set in the far future, in a high-tech, dystopian world, We Fix Space Junk draws on the sci-fi of the past, following in the footsteps of Harry Harrison and of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.Equal parts love-letter to sci-fi and satire of the present-day, Space Junk is lovingly produced by Beth Crane and Hedley Knights of Battle Bird Productions.To support the show visit patreon.com/BattleBirdProd or visit Battlebird.productions

At the Penumbra, you might follow Juno Steel, a brooding, sharp-witted private eye on Mars, as he tangles with an elusive homme fatale, tracks dangerous artifacts of an ancient alien civilization, and faces his three greatest fears: heights, blood, and relationships. Or you might enter the world of the Second Citadel, where the merciless Sir Caroline must corral a team of emotionally distraught all-male knights to defend their city against mind-manipulating monsters...even the ones they’ve fallen in love with. These audio dramas and more await you in the Penumbra, dear traveler. We hope you enjoy your stay. (Start with "1.01: Juno Steel and the Case of the Murderous Mask" or "1.09: Second Citadel - The Head of the Janus Beast.")The Penumbra is created and produced by Sophie Takagi Kaner and Kevin Vibert. Follow us on Twitter (@thepenumbrapod), Tumblr (@thepenumbrapodcast), or Facebook (The Penumbra Podcast). You can find all of our transcripts here. If you would like to view trigger warnings or SFX attributions, you can scroll to the end of the appropriate episode transcript: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/2/folders/1bnWLw5dTW4l9A0bmOMzEiy6XqqsXHHi_

Arnie Niekamp fell through a dimensional portal behind a Burger King into the fantastical land of Foon. He's still getting a slight wifi signal, so he uploads a weekly podcast from the tavern the Vermilion Minotaur where he interviews wizards, monsters and adventurers. It's a major discovery!

A mystery drama about the limits of experimental science, confronting your own past, present & future, & trying to remember the level select cheat from Sonic 2. 

Ten years ago, over three hundred men, women and children disappeared from a small town in Tennessee, never to be heard from again. In this podcast, American Public Radio reporter Lia Haddock asks the question once more, "What happened to the people of Limetown?" Limetown is produced by Two-Up, the producers of 36 Questions, The Wilderness and Shipworm.

A detective comedy drama || Even Greater London, 1887. In this vast metropolis, Inspector Archibald Fleet and journalist Clara Entwhistle investigate a murder, only to find themselves at the centre of a conspiracy of impossible proportions.

In the mountains of central Appalachia, blood runs as deep as these hollers and just as dark. Since before our kind knew these hills, hearts of unknowable hunger and madness have slumbered beneath them. These are the darkest mountains in the world. How dare we think we can break the skin of a god and dig out its heart without bringing forth blood and darkness? Old Gods of Appalachia is a horror-anthology podcast set in the shadows of an Alternate Appalachia, a place where digging too deep into the mines was just the first mistake.To learn more about Old Gods of Appalachia, visit our website at www.oldgodsofappalachia.com, and be sure to complete your social media ritual and follow us on Facebook and Instagram @oldgodsofappalachia, or Twitter and Tumblr @oldgodspod. If you'd like to support the show, you can join or Patreon at www.patreon.com/oldgodsofappalachia, or support us on Acast at supporter.acast.com/old-gods-of-appalachia. You can also find t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, and other Old Gods merch in our shop at www.teepublic.com/stores/oldgodsofappalachia.Old Gods of Appalachia is a production of DeepNerd Media and is distributed by Rusty Quill. All rights reserved. Get Build Mama a Coffin, Black Mouthed Dog and other exclusive content on Patreon!Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/old-gods-of-appalachia. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An investigation into witchcraft, the occult and secret government operations. From H.P. Lovecraft.

Unwell, a Midwestern Gothic Mystery is a new audio drama from HartLife NFP.Releases every other week during season.Lillian Harper moves to the small town of Mt. Absalom, Ohio, to care for her estranged mother Dorothy after an injury. Living in the town's boarding house which has been run by her family for generations, she discovers conspiracies, ghosts, and a new family in the house's strange assortment of residents.

Archive 81 is a fiction podcast about horror, cities, and the subconscious.New episodes will be released every other Wednesday.Start from "01 - A Body In A New Place"

It's Spring 2142 (a Tuesday), and Gated Galaxies has launched its 400 Oz-8000 ships, each carrying 50,000 "resting guests" to, hopefully, a new home on a shiny, brand-new planet. Except this whole "terraform and take over" idea isn't actually the plan; the real plan is far more nefarious and involves a great deal of cackling. But those aboard the ships don't know that, so off they toodle (those that make it out of Earth's atmosphere, at least), all shiny and optimistic. This is the story of one of those ships – the Oz 9 – and its tiny crew of hopeless incompetents. So far, they've been in space half an hour and several hundred people are dead. So... bright future, clearly.

In this horror/fantasy serial drama, Carpenter and Faulkner, two worshippers of an outlawed god, travel up the length of their deity’s great black river, searching for holy revelations. As their pilgrimage lengthens and the river’s mysteries deepen, the two acolytes find themselves under threat from a police manhunt, but also come into conflict with the weirder gods that have flourished in these forgotten rural territories.Next episode drops 3rd June. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.