(UPDATED) Rank AHS Seasons

[Bling 31,414]

In honor of American Horror Stories premiering later this month (July 15), and AHS 10 Double Feature premiering next month (Aug 25), I'm rewatching all the seasons from 1, Murder House. AHS is a very polarizing series and I'm interested to know how you'd rank each seasons best to worst, and why. 

For me it's:

Best

1) Murder House 

Its just perfect. Scary, suspenseful, dramatic, funny, cliffhangers, twists, satisfying plot and character arcs. And the best part, nearly nude Dylan McDermott 

2) Asylum

VERY closely tied with season 1, the only thing keeping it behind is the whole unexplained alien plot. This was the beginning of AHS having plot holes or just random stuff to muck up the plot. Lana FREAKING Winters 

3) Coven

Season 3 was just pure FUN. What brought it down for me was the lack of, well, horror. Not very scary and some plot holes as mentioned above. 

4) Hotel

Need I say more? (Actually this season has A LOT wrong with it imo but Gaga made up for it all. And the soundtrack.) But the serial killer plot, the vampire kids, the r*pe demon, all could have gone away. Love the symbolism for addiction and trauma though.

5) Roanoke

The whole found footage thing has been overdone at this point, but I love Sarah Paulson (as always) and there were some scary moments and twists. 

Worst

6) Freakshow

This one is sentimental mainly because it was Jessica Lange's last season as a starring role. There's so much filler and lack of consistency within the characters this season, it's hard to follow or watch. 

7) Apocalypse

SUCH a letdown. When I heard that this was a Coven/Murder House crossover season I was so excited. It turned out to be SUPER messy and just a lot of wasted potential. Some cool moments for sure but as a whole seemed farfetched and bland. 

8) Cult

The best parts of this were the end, Sarah Paulson, and Evan Peters as multiple iconic cult leaders. Other than that it was pretty horrible.

9) 1984

It just....didn't. It just couldn't. Nothing worked. Literally the only season of the show I never finished. The plot went nowhere, none of the characters were likeable. Horrible acting. The best part was the iconic intro...

************UPDATE: I've now rewatched s 1-3 with my mom (watching Freakshow now) and so far Asylum replaces Murder House as my fav. It really is just so scary and has a lot of political commentary.

Murder House has moved down on my list, not sure where. 

Coven, in review, actually has moved down in my list too. It's still one of my favs, but the hunt for the Supreme felt so rushed. The whole race subplot though is very interesting to watch among today's political climate. 

Freakshow still has such promising first few episodes...but I remember it took a turn down real fast so I'll update once we finish the season.

 

[ara 139]

for me its 

1. murder house - SO well written and amazing characters

2. Coven - i loved everything about this season especially jessica lange and angela bassett!

3. Asylum - amazing and def the scariest for me 

4. Hotel - Gaga was amazing and i loved the other characters and the hotel setting, had a lot of cool concepts

5. Freak Show - i loved the setting and time period, all the diff characters were really cool, def a crazy season haha, i loved it and jessica lange was show stopping as always

6. 1984 - I love the 80s and loved all the classic campy slasher vibes 

7. Apocalypse - didnt love or finish this one but it def had some iconic moments and cody fern was HOT

8. Roanoke - didnt finish this one either.. it just bored me

9. Cult - absolutely hated this one other than evan peters being naked in some scenes lol

 

[GipJo 2,912]

1 Asylum

2 Hotel

3 Murder House

4 Roanoke

5 Freak Show

6 Coven

7 Cult

8 1984

9 Apocalypse

[Esteban 2,300]

1) Asylum
2) Coven
3) Freakshow
4) Cult
5) Murder House
6) 1984
7) Roanoke
8) Hotel
9) Apocalypse

[COOOK 76,406]

DOMINIQUE NIQUE NIQUE

Spoiler

Asylum
Coven
Hotel
Murder House
Roanoke
Freakshow = 1984
Apocalypse
Cult

 

[Rahrahbitchson 19,936]

6 minutes ago, COOOK said:

DOMINIQUE NIQUE NIQUE

  Reveal hidden contents

Asylum
Coven
Hotel
Murder House
Roanoke
Freakshow = 1984
Apocalypse
Cult

 

Pepper!
Pepper, Pepper bo bepper banana fanna fo fepper
Fee fy mo mepper, pepper!

[Poltergeist 3,623]

For me it's probably:

Coven, Apocalypse, Asylum, Murder House, Freakshow, Hotel, Roanoke, 1984, Cult.

As to why, Coven, Asylum, MH are the core of AHS,and Apocalypse connects two of those + I love the end of the world theme. Freakshow is near their iconicness, but starting with Hotel I'm missing something (other than Jessica , but she was my fav along with Sarah). Cult is last because politics bore me, and there's too much of Evan Peters, yes, I'm one of those few who don't love him 

I still love all of them including the very bottom of the list. My favorite series ever and I can't wait for Double Feature and Stories! 

[Bling 31,414]

57 minutes ago, GipJo said:

1 Asylum

2 Hotel

3 Murder House

4 Roanoke

5 Freak Show

6 Coven

7 Cult

8 1984

9 Apocalypse

 

49 minutes ago, Esteban said:

1) Asylum
2) Coven
3) Freakshow
4) Cult
5) Murder House
6) 1984
7) Roanoke
8) Hotel
9) Apocalypse

Interesting, why did you choose Asylum as the top? And looks like Apocalypse was not well received by fans 

[Bling 31,414]

32 minutes ago, Poltergeist said:

For me it's probably:

Coven, Apocalypse, Asylum, Murder House, Freakshow, Hotel, Roanoke, 1984, Cult.

As to why, Coven, Asylum, MH are the core of AHS,and Apocalypse connects two of those + I love the end of the world theme. Freakshow is near their iconicness, but starting with Hotel I'm missing something (other than Jessica , but she was my fav along with Sarah). Cult is last because politics bore me, and there's too much of Evan Peters, yes, I'm one of those few who don't love him 

I still love all of them including the very bottom of the list. My favorite series ever and I can't wait for Double Feature and Stories! 

I love your positivity. There's definitely something I like from every season but some I just couldn't vibe with. Also seasons 1-3 really just ARE different and the best...I'm not sure what shifted for Freakshow. So much potential, just like Cult and 1984 imo 

[Poltergeist 3,623]

48 minutes ago, WheresMy911Alice said:

I love your positivity. There's definitely something I like from every season but some I just couldn't vibe with. Also seasons 1-3 really just ARE different and the best...I'm not sure what shifted for Freakshow. So much potential, just like Cult and 1984 imo 

It feels like first 3 seasons were naturally quirky, filled with dark humor, and starting with Freakshown it has lost that authenticity? I don't know how to explain this, funny things from first 3 seasons fit their themes well, and later on it feels just... scripted. It's funny because they WANTED it to be, not because it just turned out like that in a natural way.

[danbekim 3,064]

I'm currently rewatching it but from what I remember :

1 - Asylum

2 - Murder House

3 - Roanoke (I liked how they switched between formats)

4 - Apocalypse

5 - Hotel

6 - Cult

7 - Freakshow

8 - 1984

 

I didn't include Coven because I don't really remember that season 

[Luke78619 23,329]

I swear every time I answer this, my ranking changes  but let’s see 

1. Asylum - I love everything about it, I even enjoyed the unanswered alien plot, open to more exploration in future (I just hope they don’t ruin what could be an amazing story, like they did with the anti Christine storyline )

2. Murder House - on par with Asylum, I just find that Asylum has more of the horror feeling that MH does, but still an amazing season

3. Coven - horror was dialled down but it was so fun with so many iconic moments, and I loved all the characters. Story was great too

4. Cult - I think people pay too much attention to the actual political side to it and miss the horror side of it, i think it’s a great season, although got a little messy near the end. But Ally’s character development >>>>>>>

5. Hotel - the writing is awful, but I really like all of the characters, so much potential here but unfortunately fell flat. I will say that I actually enjoyed the child vampires story line, because i had a moment of “oh **** the blood disease is gonna spread around the world” but that didn’t really happen 

6. 1984 - it was a fun season, nothing spectacular and I feel like some parts fell flat, could only connect to halfthe characters but I really liked those in particular

7. Freak Show - a good season, I just don’t find myself going back to it often

8. Apocalypse - such a waste  poor Venable, one of the most interesting characters in the franchise, only in two or three episodes  they could’ve gone with an epic antichrist VS angel storyline too with Mallory, that would’ve been more interesting than running over an anti christ with a car  

9. Roanoke - predictable season, didn’t like the characters, didn’t like the format, although some good scares

[Esteban 2,300]

1 hour ago, WheresMy911Alice said:

 

Interesting, why did you choose Asylum as the top? And looks like Apocalypse was not well received by fans 

I think it was cohesive, psychanalysis, scientific experiments, madness, christianism/satanism are themes wich work well together. I love when horror comes from the gap between science, spirituality and paranormal and that you can't dissociate madness from evil.

The alien plot doen't bothered me at all, on the contrary, it fits to that atmosphere and brings another layer of strangeness and fits to that times (cold war, ufo's, roswell).

Also the characters were awesome! Best performances of Jessica Lange and Sarah Paulson in AHS. 

Plus, no cheesiness, even the songs added something scary (Dominique nique nique nique ) like in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (that I love). It wasn't messy and really scary! There wasn't huge problems in the editing and the storyline was good for an ahs season. The aesthetic was on point too.

To finish I love 70', 80's movies about madness, ptsd, alterate realities, asylum and 60's and 70's movies about satanism, possession, esoterism so the series was the perfect deal for me 

 

[Kadikaado 4,302]

For me:

Tops - 

1 - Roanoke - It's my favorite because it's ACTUAL HORROR, while other seasons are just cute. It's the only season that actually gave us any horror and made me have a few chills.

2 - Murder House - I love this season because there's a good story and it's well wrapped.

3 - Freakshow - I love the story, I love the freaks. It's not really horror, also the clown is a highlight of the show.

Bottoms -

4 - Cult - It was a nice story, I like how it portrays the human psyque and how low people can go to survive. But meh!

5 - Coven - Not horror at all, just the cliche bitch witch with lots of brands clothing. Boring!

6 - Apocalypse - Started very well, then it became a MAJOR MESS. I just ranked it above the last because the beginning of the season was good.

7 - Hotel - The only thing to like about it was Lady Gaga.

8 - Asylum - I hate how overrated it is. There's no story, there's just fanservice. They simply added all the cliches about asylums with a little of supernatural elements. It's a mess, it barely makes any real sense. It was just made for Sarah Paulson to give a great performance. Pure trash aside Sarah Paulson's performance. No depth at all, just the same old fanservice for fanboys. BOOOOORING!

 

I didn't watch 1984 because I am bored by AHS at this point.

I rank everything according to the story that is told.

[Galvon 1,868]

I'm curently rewatching everything and some seasons I'm watching for the first time.

1. Asylum - such a cool series. So well written. Great characters, great character development. The story is interesting from beginning to end. It's just so good.

2. Murder House - Actually the same can be said about this season. It's flawless. It actually deserves to be at number 1 as well, but I think I just like Asylum a little bit better.

3. Coven - Really cool season. It deserves the hype. I just think some of the characters weren't really relatable. Also too much Delphine Lalaurie. The gore this season is also a bit too much sometimes.

4. Freak Show - It's better than most people say, but I can see why it's not as popular as the first 3 seasons. Only thing that bottered me a bit was that none of the charcters were likeable. Also the later half of the season felt kinda draged out, tho the ending was nice.

5. Hotel - It's overhyped in my opinion. Nice music and aesthetic are not ennough. The story wasn't that interesting and Most of the season really was just sex and drinking blood. I don't get why people think Gaga was so amazing in this season. To me she just looked gorgeous, but the character was kinda boring. Not that other characters were better flesshed out. In the end everyone was just insane for no reason. Liz Taylor was great tho. I must say I liked this season better now then when I first watched it.

6. Roanoke - I'm curently watching this season for the first time. So far I'm intrigued, but I don't think it will be one of my faves.

Other seasons I haven't seen yet.