This American Life - Archive

What happens when a new guy comes on the scene and changes the way everyone relates to each other? Prologue: Ira talks with Sarah Koenig about the first and only time a movie star came to her family's house when she was a kid. It didn't go well, for the celebrity or for her. The star was Robert Redford. He arrived and immediately stole all the attention her parents usually lavished on her, their youngest. Worse, they were nervous and strange around him, not themselves at all. Young Sarah was not

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. 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

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. 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

Stories that take place on the edge of civilization, just out of sight. Prologue: Every city's got a place like this: that weird no man's land on the outskirts of town, with junk yards and landfills. Charlie Gregerson grew up near that stuff, on Chicago's far south side, and he remembers finding debris from famous Louis Sullivan masterpieces in the garbage dump after those buildings were demolished. (4 minutes) Act One: Out for a simple pleasure cruise with two friends, Alex Zharov was planning to see Jamaica Bay in New York

Two lawyers who work for ICE step forward and lift the curtain on what is really happening inside our immigration system right now. 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 deciding to do things that most of us do NOT choose to do. Prologue: A new documentary called The Boys and the Bees captures a moment where a six-year-old has a very unlikely wish, and his dad decides to grant it. Host Ira Glass talks with filmmaker Arielle Knight about what happens next. (9 minutes) Act One: John Tothill tells the story of Edward Dando, a 19th-century British glutton who would eat hundreds of oysters at a time and then run out on the check. John makes the case that

911 calls unlike any we’ve heard before, and other stories about immigration agents sweeping through America. Prologue: A collection of 911 calls where you can hear immigration enforcement moving through different cities and leaving chaos in their wake. (9 minutes) Act One: More 911 calls, including people on the line with dispatchers as ICE is chasing them, trying to puzzle out their next moves. (22 minutes) Act Two: Home Depots keep getting raided over and over again in Los Angeles. And day laborers are still showing up in store parking lots

When a joke could get you killed, should you say it anyway? A group of Syrian comedians test the limits of their newfound freedom, a year after the fall of the brutal Assad regime. Prologue: Under the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad, comedian Sharief Homsi knew which jokes were too dangerous to say on stage. Now that Syria is under the control of a new government, Sharief and the other comedians of “Styria” set out on a national tour to see how far their comedy can go in this new Syria. (6

We hear from someone in Venezuela with a very specific take on the U.S. attack.

People discovering information about their own lives that they did not know, and suddenly everything looks very different. Prologue: When Pete turned 18, his dad took him on a drive to reveal a family secret he was finally old enough to know. (11 minutes) Act One: Sometimes, a lore drop comes when you least expect it. That happened to Jake Cornell and his grandmother. Producer Aviva DeKornfeld talked to Jake about it. (14 minutes) Act Two: Ben Austen had a kind of new lore drop happen to him recently. But it

How one block in Portland, Oregon became a movie-set war zone that lots of people think is a real war zone. Prologue: What the movie Hearts of Darkness and right-wing influencers have in common. (8 minutes) Act One: Producers Zoe Chace and Suzanne Gaber follow a bunch of right-wing influencers as they search for Antifa in Portland. (31 minutes) Act Two: We meet the so-called leader of Antifa in Portland. (16 minutes)

Ira Glass shares some news about This American Life

Ira Glass talks with Nancy Updike about the most personal stories they have put on the radio.

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