The 10 Best Modern Love Episodes
Whether you’re searching for solace after a breakup, craving romantic inspiration, or you just love hearing love stories, Modern Love is full of insights from the lives of real people. Based on the weekly The New York Times column, the Modern Love podcast features NYT essays written by real people, and many of the stories have become cultural phenomena, like Julie Margaret Hogben’s “When The Doorman Is Your Main Man.” The articles are often read by skilled actors like Regina King and Pedro Pascal, and after each essay is read, hosts Daniel Jones and Miya Lee speak with the author to unpack the essay and reflect on what has happened since.
Last Updated: Sep 2nd, 2021
1) A Lifetime of Good Loving
Bette’s husband looked like a “bad boy” with “smoldering looks” when they first met at a party in New York City and she thought she’d get her heartbroken in no time. But little did she know that he was a quiet type with a kind heart who made coffee for her in bed every morning and supported her ambitions as an author. Just before the pandemic started, Bette’s husband passed away after 56 years of marriage and beautiful lovin’. Bette reflects on their life together and how their love has cushioned her during her darkest hours alone. This best episode of Modern Love is a beautiful heart-breaking story about simple quiet love that makes life worth living.
2) We'll Meet Again In Five Years | With Regina King
Have you ever felt like you met the right person at the wrong time? Read by The Watchmen’s Regina King, this essay follows a couple who met early in life and agreed to reconnect five years in the future to see if they’re really meant to be together. What unfolds is a story about practicality, romance, and showing up for each other again and again. This is a quintessential NYT Modern Love episode that will make your heart feel full.
3) Researching Jenna, Discovering Myself | With Hasan Minhaj
This NYTimes Modern Love best episode is read by comedian Hasan Minhaj and explores the difficulty of getting closure following a breakup. After a ten-year relationship ends, the author copes by interviewing people — Jenna’s professor, her stepfather, his own mother — to try to understand why Jenna had left him. While he receives nuggets of wisdom about love and relationships, what he really ends up uncovering is his own trauma, and how to start addressing it.
4) The Language Of Love With Saoirse Ronan | Encore
Saoirse Ronan ("Little Women") reads an essay about how a language barrier impacts the relationship between a young woman and an Iraqi doctor. This is an encore presentation.
5) How to Learn My Love Language
When Ross Showalter turned 18 and began dating hearing men, he found himself communicating with them on their terms: using spoken language. Years of speech lessons and lip-reading practice forced Ross...Show More
6) Marriage Classes at Guantánamo
Mansoor Adayfi was only 19 when he arrived at the prison camp at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Growing up in a tiny village in the mountains of Yemen, “I didn’t know much about the world,” h...Show More
7) Encore: When Two Open Marriages Collide
What are the boundaries of an open marriage? What happens to them when your wife’s boyfriend has an accident that puts him in a coma? And what do you tell the kids? Today, we’re revisiting Wayne Scot...Show More
8) Dominate Me, but Not Like That
When it came to dating, Aly Tadros was used to hiding the messy parts of her life. “Why even bother? As soon as a guy finds out about my baggage, he bolts,” she wrote in her Modern Love essay. That i...Show More
9) Encore: A Lifetime of Good Loving
Today, we’re revisiting the story of Bette Ann Moskowitz, who lost her husband of 56 years on the eve of the coronavirus pandemic. When Bette first met her husband, she was taken by his “smoldering lo...Show More
10) A Heart Outrun | With Colin Farrell
Colin Farrell reads the story of man who had given up on love -- until it showed up at his door.