2025 Ambie Awards full winners list: 'Hysterical' and 'The Wonder of Stevie' win top honors

The 2025 Ambie Awards were held on March 31, 2025, at the McCormick Convention Center in Chicago. The show was hosted by comedian Tig Notaro. The ceremony honored the best in podcasting across 28 categories, reports suggest.

This year's top winner was Hysterical, which won Podcast of the Year and Best Reporting. The Wonder of Stevie, which is about the life and career of beloved musician Stevie Wonder, won the title of Best Entertainment Podcast.

Other big winners included Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang for Best Comedy Podcast and Thanks Dad with Ego Nwodim for Best Interview Podcast.

The Ambie Awards are presented annually by The Podcast Academy. It started in 2021.

In an official press release, The Podcast Academy mentioned:

"Tonight, The Podcast Academy (TPA), the preeminent professional podcast organization, announced winners at its Fifth Annual Awards for Excellence in Audio (The Ambies®) from the McCormick Convention Center in Chicago, which was hosted by multi-hyphenate comedian Tig Notaro."

It also added:

"Additionally, Ira Glass was honored with the esteemed Governors Award, which recognizes a podcast or individual for the compelling influence they’ve had on the industry; and Sam Sanders received the Impact Award, which recognizes an individual or podcast that has made a significant, positive effect on its listeners."

---

The full winners list for the 2025 Ambie Awards

The event's highest honor, Podcast of the Year, went to Hysterical. Audible, Higher Ground, and Pineapple Street Studios' The Wonder of Stevie bagged Best Entertainment Podcast. This American Life host Ira Glass received the Governor's Award.

As reported by Billboard, the full list of winners and nominees at the 2025 Ambies is as follows:

Podcast of the year

• 99% Invisible: Not Built for This
• Beyond All Repair
• Cement City
• Dragon Age: Vows & Vengeance
• Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD
• Faraway
• Fire Escape
• Hot White Heist 2
• WINNER: Hysterical, Wondery, Audacy’s Pineapple Street Studios
• Throughline

Best entertainment podcast

• Infamous
• Lemme Say This
• Rattled & Shook
• Scamfluencers
• Split Screen: Kid Nation
• The Road to Joni
• WINNER: The Wonder of Stevie, Audible, Higher Ground, and Pineapple Street Studios

Best podcast host or hosts

• Diallo Riddle and Blake's ‘LUXXURY’ Robin – One Song
• Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle – We Can Do Hard Things
• Jon Stewart – The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
• Rainn Wilson – Radio Rental
• WINNER: Ronald Young Jr. – Weight for It, ohitsBigRon studios LLC
• Sam Sanders – The Sam Sanders Show
• Wesley Morris – The Wonder of Stevie

Best original score and music supervision

• WINNER: Dan Leone – Ripple, Western Sound, APM Studios
• Daniel Lloyd-Evans, Louis Nanke-Mannell, and Toby Matimong – Extrasensory
• Deron Johnson – Dungeon Masters
• Jonathan Pfarr, Carson Graha,m and Bobby Mota – Celebrity Pets
• Peter Nashel, Ross Hopman, Gio Lobato, Dana Hom, Brad Fischer, Jordan Lieb, Lucas Villem,ur and Lindsay Dievert – Hammerless: A True Crime Podcast in a Fantasy World
• Skyler Gerdeman, Martin Lynabel, Nicholas Alexander, Max O’Brien, and Caroline Thornham – Kill List
• Stro Elliot and Eric Gersen – Historical Records

Best production and sound design

• Casandra Tinajero and Andrés Bahena – Nocturno: Tales From the Shadows
• Jeremy S. Bloom – Hot White Heist 2
• Kenny Kusiak and George Drabing Hicks – The Confessions of Anthony Raimondi
• WINNER: Michelle Macklem – Girl v. Horse, ESPN Podcasts, 30 for 30 Podcasts
• Realm – Narcosis
• Sagafilm and Skybound Entertainment – Impact Winter Season 3
• Ted Bonnitt – Hindsight: The Day Before

Best society and culture podcast

• Hysterical
• In Retrospect with Susie Banikarim and Jessica Bennett
• WINNER: Inheriting, LAist Studios
• Mind Your Own with Lupita Nyong’o
• My Divo
• Sixteenth Minute (of Fame)
• Weight For It

Best podcast for kids

• Culture Kids
• Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmest
• Historical Records
• Mysteries About True Histories
• PJ Library Presents: Beyond the Bookcase
• Skylar & Bones – Funny Stories for Kids!
• WINNER: Wow in the World Wondery, Tinkercast

Best Spanish language narrative podcast – fiction or nonfiction

• ¡No Vengan!
• Greal: El Secreto de las Ocho Llaves
• Hechos Reales
• WINNER: HUMO: Murder and Silence in El Salvador, Sonoro
• No quieren que sepas
• Pantallas & Mentiras [Screens & Lies]
• Pétrea

Best sports podcast

• 30 for 30 Podcasts
• WINNER: Broomgate: A Curling Scandal, Kelly&Kelly, CBC Podcasts, USG Audio, and Pacific Electric
• Good Game with Sarah Spain
• Pablo Torre Finds Out
• Shadowball: The Rise of the Black Athlete
• The Raven
• The Rich Eisen Show

Best comedy podcast

• Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend
• Hot White Heist 2
• WINNER: Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, iHeartPodcasts, Big Money Player
• Scam Goddess
• SmartLess
• We’re Here to Help
• Who Replaced Avril Lavigne? Joanne McNally Investigates

Best indie podcast

• Sightings
• The Insurgence: Sheriffs
• The Man Who Calculated Death
• The Nightingale of Iran
• The People’s Recorder
• The TMI Project Story Hour
• WINNER: What Happened in Skinner, Mazama Entertainment

Best indie podcast host or hosts

• WINNER: Dallas Taylor – Twenty Thousand Hertz, Defacto Sound
• Deja Perkins and Purbita Saha – Bring Birds Back
• Jill Jonassen – The Cost of Extremism
• Kate McCoy and Kevin Corbett – Horrorwood: True Crime in Tinseltown
• Lisa Phillips – From Now On
• Lisa Woolfork – STITCH PLEASE
• Susan Lambert Hatem and Sharon Johnson – 80s TV Ladies

Best interview podcast

• American Masters: Creative Spark
• Apple News in Conversation
• Overlooked: Women’s Health Can’t Wait
• WINNER: Thanks Dad with Ego Nwodim, Headgum
• The Assignment with Audie Cornish
• The Integrated Schools Podcast
• Tomorrow’s Cure

Best performance in audio fiction

• Bowen Yang, Cynthia Nixon, Shannon Woodward, Jane Lynch, Jesse James Keitel, Sarah Steele, Ian McKellen, Raul Esparza, Sara Ramírez, Joel Kim Booster, Bianca Del Rio, Cheyenne Jackson, Abbi Jacobson, Stephanie Beatriz, Katya Zamolodchikova, Trixie Mattel, Yvie Oddly, Jane Krakowski, Sandra Oh, and Tony Kushner – Hot White Heist 2
• WINNER: Caitlin Stasey, Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts, David Yow, Caroline Morahan, Guinevere Turner, Elizabeth Halpern, Travis Harmon, Brad Griffith, James Bacon, Jameson Cush, Jonathan Shockley, Ayla Glass and Chris Goodwin – The Skies Are Watching, Goldhawk Productions
• Fredi Bernstein, Cody Wilkins, and Dana Domenick – The Box
• Mikki Hernandez, Toby Meuli, Geri-Nikol Love, Rachel Kylian – Ominous Thrill
• Ruth Righi – Winnie Taylor’s 4th & Inches
• Sanaa Lathan – The Justice
• Tisha Campbell – Snoriezzz

The 2025 Ambie Awards reflected the ongoing growth of the podcast industry.

---

Read More: From Tate McRae to Anne Murray: Complete winners list from the 2025 Juno Awards

Is Kim Kardashian suing Lana Del Rey for $1 million? Drama explained

OpenAI to impose limits on Ghibli-style image generation as CEO Sam Altman says "our GPUs are melting"