What is the World War II podcast with Tom Hanks actually about?
World War II with Tom Hanks is a 20-part podcast series that frames the Second World War as the largest event in human history. Its stated goal is to deliver the ultimate account of WWII — covering every story from the conflict, across every corner of the globe, over the six years the war consumed the world.
The series is built around a central conviction: that no part of the globe went untouched, and no life went unchanged. Rather than a conventional military history focused on strategy and commanders, the podcast foregrounds the human cost of those six years — what ordinary people endured, witnessed, and sacrificed. You can listen to the full series on Listenly to hear how Hanks structures that narrative across all 20 episodes.
Tom Hanks brings to the project both his long public engagement with WWII history — through films, books, and advocacy for veterans — and the storytelling instinct of a filmmaker. The result is a series that holds the full scale of the conflict in view while insisting that individual human stories are what give those years their meaning.
"We saw human beings at their absolute worst, but we also saw them at their absolute best, willing to sacrifice their lives so that others may live."
— Tom Hanks, World War II with Tom Hanks