American Horror Story: Ranking Jessica Lange's Characters From Worst To Best

2. Sister Jude

After Lange's award-winning performance in the first season, Ryan Murphy ensured that he didn't waste a drop of the actress' talent, putting her front and centre where she belongs for the show's second season, Asylum. This time Lange inhabited the role of Sister Jude, the nun in charge of the Briarcliff institute for the criminally insane.

Much like Elsa, the greatest thing about Sister Jude is her character growth. The hard-hearted nun starts out as a self-righteous authoritarian, but by the end she becomes rather caring and concerned, having learned from her mistakes the hard way.

The Briarcliff matriarch suffered immensely throughout Asylum, and even ended up as an inmate due to the corruption and the patriarchy. This suffering only strengthened the character's arc, however, and by the end of the season viewers were supporting her in their droves.

Asylum is without a shadow of a doubt the strongest American Horror Story season to date, and that is largely in part to Lange's character, who is one of the greatest ever produced by the showrunners. Had the subject of the final entry in this list not come along when she did, then Sister Jude would've taken our number one spot.