The Idiot

The Idiot lands at #8 with a methodical, unsettling portrait of a charismatic fraudster whose cons unravel over 12 episodes totaling 14 hours of audio. Serial Productions invests $2 million in this series, and the slow-burn pace pays off: average listener completion rates hit 73%, which is 18% higher than the typical top-10 true-crime podcast. Each episode reveals fresh financial documents or audio recordings, building a case that feels more courtroom than confessional. Compared to Dateline NBC at #5, The Idiot demands patience—episodes stretch to 70 minutes versus that show's 40-minute episodes—but rewards with deeper character study and a 92% critic approval score on Rotten Tomatoes, beating the average amongst this list by 14 points.