Ranking Every Season Of American Horror Story From Worst To Best

They've all been great, but which one reigns supreme?

American Horror Story
FX

American Horror Story has been terrifying audiences around the world for the better part of seven years now, and has accumulated numerous awards for it. The FX drama resets every year, with new themes and storylines, allowing each individual season to stand on its own two feet.

The anthology series has tackled just about every type of horror imaginable over its seven seasons on the air: from the psychological torment seen in Asylum, to the old-fashioned hauntings seen in both Murder House and Hotel, there's very little that AHS hasn't touched upon. It's even dealt with the horrors of the 21st century, including what really goes on behind the cameras on a reality TV programme (Roanoke), and more recently, the 2016 presidential election (Cult).

With the upcoming eighth season (entitled Apocalypse) set to revisit two of AHS' better outings, it's time to look back at every season of the show so far, and in doing so, determine which one is the greatest. There have been some cracking seasons of American Horror Story, but as Fiona Goode learned the hard way in Season 3, only one can reign supreme.

7. Cult

American Horror Story
FX

Nobody knew what to expect from American Horror Story's seventh season, as Roanoke had taken the anthology series in a rather different direction the previous year. Season 7 promised to be a return to AHS' usual dynamic, and it more or less accomplished that.

On paper, Cult had everything going for it, and the premise couldn't have been more relevant if it tried - using the 2016 presidential election as the basis for the season's narrative was a pretty neat idea. However, this concept wasn't fully realised, and the whole narrative felt half-baked.

The story was contrived from the off, and many of the characters were poorly written. The tone, however, was Cult's worst offender, as the writers seemingly couldn't decide if they wanted the show to be a comedy or drama. It became quite satirical, and ended up resembling Ryan Murphy's short-lived Scream Queens more than it did AHS.

Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters were the only real redeeming factors, as both actors delivered some of their best work yet - in spite of the mediocre material. Murphy and Brad Falchuk deserve to be applauded for their bold move, but a bit more work could've been done on the storyline, which was incredibly weak in comparison to previous outings of the hit series, thus rendering Cult the worst AHS season to date.

Contributor
Contributor

Stephen Patterson is an experienced writer and reviewer. He's also a TV addict.