Best Serial episodes upvoted by the community

S01 Episode 01: The Alibi

October 03, 2014

It's Baltimore, 1999. Hae Min Lee, a popular high-school senior, disappears after school one day. Six weeks later detectives arrest her classmate and ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, for her murder. He says he's innocent - though he can't exactly remember what he was doing on that January afternoon. But someone can. A classmate at Woodlawn High School says she knows where Adnan was. The trouble is, she’s nowhere to be found.  

S01 Update: Day 01, Adnan Syed’s Hearing

February 04, 2016

February 2016: Sarah Koenig ducks back into the Adnan Syed case for a few days. There’s a hearing in Baltimore—a court proceeding that’s been nearly sixteen years in the making. Syed’s attorney will introduce new evidence, and present a case for why his conviction should be overturned. Sarah and producer Dana Chivvis will discuss what happens, day by day.

S02 Episode 07: Hindsight, Part 1

February 18, 2016

It makes sense if you’re Bowe Bergdahl.

Nice White Parents - Ep. 2

August 20, 2020 • 52m

Chana Joffe-Walt searches the New York City Board of Education archives for more information about the School for International Studies, which was originally called I.S. 293. In the process, she finds a folder of letters written in 1963 by mostly white families in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. They are asking for the board to change the proposed construction of the school to a site where it would be more likely to be racially integrated. It’s less than a decade after Brown v. Board of Education, amid a growing civil rights movement, and the white parents writing letters are emphatic that they want an integrated school. They get their way and the school site changes — but after that, nothing else goes as planned.

Nice White Parents - Ep. 3

August 20, 2020 • 45m

Chana Joffe-Walt explores how white parents can shape a school — even when they aren’t there. She traces the history of I.S. 293, now the Boerum Hill School for International Studies, from the 1980s through the modern education reforms of the 2000s. In the process, Chana talks to alumni who loved their school and never questioned why it was on the edge of a white neighborhood. To them, it was just where everyone went. But she also speaks to some who watched the school change over the years and questioned whether a local community school board was secretly plotting against 293.

Nice White Parents - Ep. 1

August 20, 2020 • 62m

It’s 2015 and one Brooklyn middle school is about to receive a huge influx of new students. Reporter Chana Joffe Walt follows what happens when the School for International Studies’s 6th grade class swells from 30 mostly Latino, Black and Middle Eastern students, to a class of 103 —an influx almost entirely driven by white families. Everyone wants “what’s best for the school” but it becomes clear that they don’t share the same vision of what “best” means. For more information about this show, visit nytimes.com/nicewhiteparents

S02 Episode 03: Escaping

December 24, 2015

Bergdahl’s first year in captivity starts with an escape and ends with an escape. In between, he learns necessary, twisted lessons of survival.

S02 Episode 04: The Captors

January 07, 2016

What's happening on the other side of the door?

S02 Episode 08: Hindsight, Part 2

February 19, 2016

Woulda, coulda, shoulda…

S03 Trailer

September 05, 2018

Serial is heading back to court—this time, in Cleveland. Hear the trailer now.

S01 Episode 09: To Be Suspected

November 20, 2014

New information is coming in about what maybe didn’t happen on January 13, 1999.  And while Adnan’s memory of that day is foggy at best, he does remember what happened next: being questioned, being arrested and, a little more than a year later, being sentenced to life in prison.

S01 Episode 05: Route Talk

October 23, 2014

Adnan once issued a challenge to Sarah. He told her to test the state’s timeline of the murder by driving from Woodlawn High School to Best Buy in 21 minutes. It can’t be done, he said. So Sarah and Dana take up the challenge, and raise him one: They try to recreate the entire route that Jay said he and Adnan took on January 13th, 1999.  

S03 Episode 02: You’ve Got Some Gauls

September 20, 2018

When a judge believes he knows you better than you know yourself.

S01 Episode 03: Leakin Park

October 09, 2014

It’s February 9, 1999. Hae has been missing for three weeks. A man on his lunch break pulls off a road to pee, and stumbles on her body in a city forest. His odd recounting of the discovery makes Detectives Ritz and MacGillivary suspicious. For instance, why did he walk so far into the woods - 127 feet - to relieve himself? And that’s just the start. A look into the man’s past reveals some bizarre behavior.

S-Town Is Live

March 28, 2017 • 2m

Sarah Koenig, Ira Glass, and Brian Reed talk about our new show, S-Town. All 7 chapters are available now.

Preview of S-Town, Our New Show

March 14, 2017 • 3m

We have a new show! Here’s a sneak peek of S-Town, a new podcast from Serial and This American Life, hosted by Brian Reed. S-Town is the story of a man named John who despises his Alabama town and decides to do something about it. He asks Brian to investigate the son of a wealthy family who’s allegedly been bragging that he got away with murder. But when someone else ends up dead, the search for the truth leads to a nasty feud, a hunt for hidden treasure, and an unearthing of the mysteries of one man’s life. Coming March 28.

Nice White Parents - Ep. 5

August 20, 2020 • 53m

Chana has traced the history of the school from its founding and come to the present. But now: One unexpected last chapter. Last year, the school district for BHS mandated a change in the zoning process to ensure all middle schools would be racially integrated. No longer can white families hoard resources in a few select schools. Black and Latino parents have been demanding this change since the late 1950s. The courts have mandated it. Chana asks: How did this happen? And is this a blueprint for real, systemic change?

S02 Episode 05: Meanwhile, in Tampa

January 21, 2016

CIA, FBI, YouTube, the Portland PD? There was no handbook for getting Bergdahl back.

S01 Episode 12: What We Know

December 18, 2014

On January 13, 1999, Adnan Syed was a hurt and vengeful ex-boyfriend who carried out a premeditated murder. Or he was a bewildered bystander, framed for a crime he could never have committed. After 15 months of reporting, we take out everything we’ve got - interviews and documents and police reports - we shake it all out, and we see what sticks.

S03 Episode 04: A Bird in Jail Is Worth Two on the Street

October 04, 2018

What happens when the right evidence points to the wrong man?