This American Life

889: There’s Something About Hail Mary

This American Life — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 18:00:00 -0400

We spend an hour in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter, behind and desperate, with people trying any damn thing they can think of.

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Prologue: Five years after Ora first started experiencing mysterious and debilitating health problems, she decides to try a treatment that she knows very well might kill her. Host Ira Glass talks to her about the experience. (9 minutes)
Act One: Two lawyers have just three months to stop their client's execution. In Texas, where this story takes place, these kinds of appeals to get people off death row fail 94% of the time. (38 minutes)
Act Two: At the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, migrants figured out an ingenious way to communicate with the activists gathered outside of the detention center’s walls. (13 minutes)

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354: Mistakes Were Made

This American Life — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 18:00:00 -0400

It’s the late 1960s, and a California TV repairman named Bob sees an opportunity to help people cheat death with the new science of cryonics. But freezing dead people isn’t easy. And apologizing for the mistakes you make along the way? Even harder.

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Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks about the way most political apologies go, and chats with a man named Derek Jones about similar sorts of apologies among preteen girls and King David, in the Old Testament. (7 minutes)
Act One: In the late 1960s, a California TV repairman named Bob Nelson joined a group of enthusiasts who believed they could cheat death with a new technology called cryonics. But freezing dead people so scientists can reanimate them in the future is a lot harder than it sounds. Harder still was admitting to the family members of people Bob had frozen that he'd screwed up. Sam Shaw reports. (42 minutes)
Act Two: There's a famous William Carlos Williams poem called "This is Just to Say." It's about, among other things, causing a loved one inconvenience and offering a non-apologizing apology. Producer Sean Cole explains that this is possibly the most spoofed poem around. We asked some of our regular contributors to get into the act. Sarah Vowell, David Rakoff, Starlee Kine, Jonathan Goldstein, Shalom Auslander, and Heather O'Neill all came up with their own variations of Williams's classic lines. (7 minutes)

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888: Not Today, Hades!

This American Life — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 18:00:00 -0400

Regular people trapped inside Greek myths.

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Prologue: When a mysterious, ripped-open package arrives on Pablo's doorstep, he takes it as a sign. (4 minutes)
Act One: Pablo flies closer to the sun. (14 minutes)
Act Two: In Greek mythology, there's Hades, where everyone goes when they die. You have to cross the river Styx to get there, and there’s a gate with this three-headed dog. He’s guarding the entrance and he’s supposed to make sure only actual dead people enter. This story is about a real person in America who stood at those very gates. Which is not the easiest job it turns out, at least not right now. (24 minutes)
Act Three: A mortal gets the assignment of a lifetime — to go interview an actual god who is living on earth, traveling under the name of Lionel Messi. (11 minutes)

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137: The Book That Changed Your Life

This American Life — Sun, 31 May 2026 18:00:00 -0400

We want to believe our lives can be changed by the ideas contained in a book.

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Prologue: When Alexa was seven, she started going through her grandfather's books. Her grandfather was a playwright and teacher, and through the books—and especially through his notes in the margins—she entered the world of 1930's American theater. And she found a book that changed her life: writer Moss Hart's autobiography Act One. (5 minutes)
Act One: More of Alexa Junge and how Moss Hart's autobiography changed her life. She followed his path, learned specific lessons, and had a vision of him that was absolutely clear—until she met his widow. (10 minutes)
Act Two: A book that changed a family's life—temporarily, and not for the better. David Sedaris on what happened when he found a dirty book in the woods and passed it along to his sisters. (9 minutes)
Act Three: Reporter Jeremy Goldstein tells the story of a man who had many books change his life, even though he'd never read them. (14 minutes)
Act Four: Writer Meghan Daum travels to De Smet, South Dakota—where Laura Ingalls Wilder lived and set most of her Little House books. What surprises her is how much it matches what she'd imagined. The people there seem to be genuinely living by the values Laura wrote about. (15 minutes)

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887: Two Is One, One Is None!

This American Life — Sun, 17 May 2026 18:00:00 -0400

One family faces the Trump administration’s ban on trans people serving in the military, and responds with a surprising secret weapon.

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Prologue: Geirid and Chrissy are extreme planners. But about a year ago, they were confronted with a situation that even they had no idea how to plan for. (4 minutes)
Act One: Geirid and Chrissy make an “in case of emergency, break glass” spreadsheet and get some big news. (14 minutes)
Act Two: Geirid and Chrissy have less than a month to make a life-changing decision. The government gives them two options, and they try to find a third. (21 minutes)
Act Three: A short story from Rachel Khong: Two people have a very consequential choice to make, given to them by God. (15 minutes)

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886: Blackout

This American Life — Sun, 03 May 2026 18:00:00 -0400

Since the war began in Iran, we've heard very little from people inside the country — and there's a reason for that. The entire country has been under an internet blackout. We worked with reporters Roxana Saberi and Fatemeh Jamalpour to get voice memos out of the country. Even though it was dangerous and difficult, people wanted to be heard.

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Prologue: Shirin's parents suddenly disappear into the blackout. (5 minutes)
Act One: It’s a war and a blackout. People want to talk about both. (17 minutes)
Act Two: What happened before America and Israel went to war with Iran. (9 minutes)
Act Three: Iranians have many opinions about the war, and about each other. (12 minutes)
Act Four: What happened inside Iran the night President Trump threatened that "a whole civilization could die." And a clue about where the internet blackout is headed. (19 minutes)

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Ira (Reluctantly) Gives a Graduation Speech

This American Life — Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 -0400

Ira always hated commencement speeches. Then he felt like he had to give this one.

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885: Bless This Mess

This American Life — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 18:00:00 -0400

At a time when the U.S. government is trying to make American history tidier, we try to learn from the mess. Including the untold, messy story of Paul and Essie Robeson.

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Prologue: Guest Host Emanuele Berry talks to Nichole Hill about the Black movie characters Nichole was curious about as a child. (7 minutes)
Act One: A giant of the Harlem Renaissance, Paul Robeson was the most famous American of his day. Until he wasn’t. Nichole Hill tells the messy, complicated story of Paul and his wife, Essie Robeson. (38 minutes)
Act Two: In 1865, a formerly enslaved man named Jourdan Anderson received a letter from his former enslaver, asking Jourdan to return to the plantation and work. Actor Laurence Fishburne reads Jourdan’s response.

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884: The Idiot

This American Life — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 18:00:00 -0400

M. Gessen returns to our show with a true-crime story that takes place entirely within their own family. This story comes to us from the producers at Serial Productions—who invented the true-crime podcast more than a decade ago—and from The New York Times.

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Act One: M Gessen tells Ira Glass about the surprising events that prompted them to begin reporting on their own family for their new podcast, The Idiot. They play the first episode of the series. (14 minutes)
Act Two: Ira Glass and M Gessen continue to talk through the story of M’s cousin, Allen Gessen. They play more clips from the podcast, and we finally hear about the big, shocking thing that snapped their family apart. (20 minutes)
Act Three: M Gessen tells Ira Glass about Allen’s trial, and we hear a recording of his conversation with the undercover agent. (21 minutes)

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883: Call Your Parents

This American Life — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 18:00:00 -0400

In the early days of the radio show, Ira did a series of interviews with his parents that completely changed his relationship with them. This week, he returns to those interviews.

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Prologue: Ira talks about why four conversations reveal how his relationship with his parents changed. (4 minutes)
Act One: Ira’s mom, Shirley, is invited to lead a discussion about how to get along with your adult children. Her adult children question her expertise. (9 minutes)
Act Two: Ira asks his parents for advice on how he should build the radio show. His parents don’t hold back. (9 minutes)
Act Three: Ira talks with his dad, Barry, about Barry’s own brief and doomed career in radio. (21 minutes)
Act Four: An interview with Ira’s mom that, to this day, makes Ira’s skin crawl. (13 minutes)

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882: Give a Little Whistle

This American Life — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 19:00:00 -0400

Two lawyers who work for ICE step forward and lift the curtain on what is really happening inside our immigration system right now.

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Prologue: Two lawyers dive into the details of what they’ve witnessed behind the scenes in different parts of the immigration system. (2 minutes)
Act One: Former ICE attorney Ryan Schwank explains the chaos and dysfunction he observed at an ICE training academy, which led him to whistleblow to Congress two weeks ago. (12 minutes)
Act Two: A federal judge orders the government to immediately release a bunch of people from detention. Days pass, and the government doesn’t comply. So the judge calls a hearing to figure out what’s going on. The lawyer's response is not what he or anybody expected. (25 minutes)

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New Lore Drop

This American Life — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 00:00:00 -0500

People discovering information about their own lives that they did not know and suddenly everything looks very different.

An Update from Ira

This American Life — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0400

Ira Glass shares some news about This American Life

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Bonus: Nancy's Deep Cuts

This American Life — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0400

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.

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A Big Announcement

This American Life — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 00:00:00 -0400

Ira Glass has news to share about some things happening here at This American Life.

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