The 5 best podcasts of 2020

The year's best listens let us open our homes (and ears) to an enticing mystery, insightful conversations, and the hilarious return of George St. Geegland and Gil Faizon. Here are our five favorite podcasts of 2020.

01 of 05

5. The Left Right Game

This 10-episode immersive mystery, which began its life on Reddit, feels like an old-timey radio play with better sound effects, as a quirky group, including Tessa Thompson, take an unexpected trip. —Sarah Rodman (Listen Here)

02 of 05

4. Oh, Hello: the P'dcast

Not so much a podcast as an out-of-body experience, this pitch- perfect audio series was both a hilarious John Mulaney-Nick Kroll improv riff and a time capsule of what it was like to live through the insanity of 2020. —Anne Latini (Listen Here)

03 of 05

3. The Kingcast

Scott Wampler and Eric Vespe chat with notable — and often notably chatty — Stephen King fans, including Kumail Nanjiani, Dee Wallace, and Elijah Wood, about an adaptation of their choice from the horror master's repertoire.—Clark Collis (Listen Here)

04 of 05

2. Smartless

In podcasting, shooting the breeze with your famous friends gets old. Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett defied expectations, delivering insightful chats with guests such as Kamala Harris, all while teasing one another mercilessly. —JD Heyman (Listen Here)

05 of 05

1. Wind of Change

All of the excitement of a true-crime podcast, none of the dead women. In this eight-episode series, investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe takes a look back at the CIA's long history of subterfuge through the arts. There's what we know — Louis Armstrong and Nina Simone on tour in Africa in the '60s — and then there's what we can't be sure of. A hot tip from a friend prompts Keefe to investigate a rumor that the Scorpions' 1990 power ballad "Wind of Change" might have actually been written by CIA operatives to bolster anticommunist sentiment in Europe at the end of the Cold War. —A.L. (Listen Here)

For more on our Entertainers of the Year and Best & Worst of 2020, order the January issue of Entertainment Weekly or find it on newsstands beginning Friday. Don't forget to subscribe for more exclusive interviews and photos, only in EW.

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