I go through podcasts like a thing that is known for going through a lot of other things goes through the things that it is known for going through (e.g. fish and socks). My list is long, but here are a bunch of my favorites:
Top recommendations
Radiolab
More Perfect
This American life
Snap Judgement
Serial (both seasons)
Reply All
Science Vs.
99PI
Love and Radio
Here Be Monsters.
The Memory Palace
(Honestly, anything put out by NPR, Gimlet Media, or Radiotopia)
Missing Richard Simmons
Limetown
Common Sense
Welcome to Nightvale
Alice isn’t Dead
Risk!
Malcolm Gladwell’s revisionist history
Freakonomics
The B team (also worth looking at, but a bit more niche, or straight up nerdy)
Data Skeptic (data science methods)
Brookings Cafeteria and 5 on 45 (both are politics & policy analysis)
The Canon (debates about movies)
Tanis & The Black Tapes (weird fiction)
Decode D.C. (More politics and current events)
Transistor (science stories)
Random Tape (cancelled, but cool stuff in the archive)
Pleasuretown
Nature (selections from the journal Nature)
Knifepoint Horror (well written, always scary)