The Correct Order To Watch The American Horror Story Shows

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The 2011 horror anthology series "American Horror Story," co-created by Brad Falchuk and TV juggernaut Ryan Murphy, is presented in a novel fashion. Each one of its 12 seasons stands as a wholly independent 10-to-13-episode miniseries, with each one featuring a unique set of characters and a new timeframe/location (in the U.S., of course). Murphy and Falchuk select a traditionally Halloween-y horror topic or premise — a haunted house, vampires, a witch coven, a circus sideshow, extraterrestrials, cultists — and then spin it out in their own sensationalistic idiom. "American Horror Story" tends to be salacious and stylized, and its sheer variety have kept audiences coming back for years.

Note: "American Horror Story" is not to be confused with the 2021 series "American Horror Stories," which is actually a spinoff. "Stories" is a more traditional "Tales from the Crypt"-like anthology show, with each episode featuring an original story and its own unique cast of actors. Only a few episodes of "Stories" connect directly to "American Horror Story."

Many of the same actors appear in each season of "Story," each time playing a different character. Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, and Lily Rabe have each been in nine of the show's 12 seasons to date, and the as-yet unnamed 13th season will also feature Paulson and Peters. Jessica Lange is another notable star, having been in five of the show's seasons, as has Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, and Finn Wittrock. Emma Roberts similarly shows up frequently.

Just as important as the show itself, however, are the striking and surrealistic "American Horror Story" ad campaigns. The show's ubiquitous marketing features creative and disturbing images of distorted bodies, mutated faces, and nightmarish monsters, and likely draws more people to watch the show than anything in the series itself.

To keep the show's 12 seasons clear, we at /Film have assembled the handy guide below. Refer to it as you trek through Murphy's various Halloween Horror Nights exhibits.

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The seasons of "American Horror Story" (for more, see /Film's ranking of them) were released in the following order:

1. "Murder House" (2011)
2. "Asylum" (2012)
3. "Coven" (2013)
4. "Freak Show" (2014)
5. "Hotel" (2015)
6. "Roanoke" (2016)
7. "Cult" (2017)
8. "Apocalypse" (2018)
9. "1984" (2019)
10. "Double Feature" (2021) 
    1. "Red Tide" 
    2. "Death Valley"
11. "NYC" (2022)
12. "Delicate" (Part One: 2023; Part Two: 2024)

The first season of the spinoff "American Horror Stories" came before "Double Feature." The second came before "NYC," and the third (confusingly) came in the middle of "Delicate," which was released in two parts.

The titles of the show's first four seasons kind of speak for themselves. "Hotel" is the season that incorporates vampires and stars Lady Gaga. Fans of real-life horror stories likely know that "Roanoke" refers to the Roanoke colony in Virginia, founded in 1585. That colony mysteriously disappeared in 1590 and no one ever located its 100-plus inhabitants. The related "American Horror Story" season takes place in a haunted colonial house and is presented as a found-footage documentary.

The season called "Cult" came in the wake of the first Donald Trump administration, and declared that the president's voters were cultists. "Apocalypse" is about the birth of the Antichrist. "1984" recreated a 1980s-style slasher movie and had nothing to do with George Orwell. True to its name, "Double Feature" was split into two miniseries, with "Red Tide" being about mysterious creatures from the sea and "Death Valley" being about mysterious extraterrestrials. "NYC" is a story set in the 1980s and surrounds the rise of the AIDS crisis.

"Delicate" is unusual in the annals of "American Horror Story" as it's based on a novel, "Delicate Condition" by Danielle Valentine. The story is about the horrors a young woman encounters during her pregnancy.

Because the "American Horror Story" seasons all span different periods of American history, ambitious viewers may want to take them in chronologically. Thankfully, we here at /Film can provide that as well. Read on, gentle reader.

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Although the stories don't always interconnect from season to season, there is still an interesting portrait of history being told through "American Horror Story." As such, here are the seasons presented by the years in which they take place. Note that many of them do take place in the present:

1. "Freak Show" (1952)
2. "Asylum" (1964)
3. "NYC" (1981)
4. "1984" (uh... 1984)
5. "Murder House" (2011)
6. "Coven" (2013)
7. "Roanoke" (2014)
8. "Hotel" (2015)
9. "Cult" (2017)
10. "Apocalypse" (2020)
11. "Double Feature" (2021)
12. "Delicate" (2023)

Note that most of the "Stories" spinoff series also takes place in the present, although at least one episode — "Leprechaun," from the third season — has a prologue set in 1851.

"American Horror Story," merely through its tenacity, has become something of an institution, and even those who don't watch the show likely look forward to its strange billboards that pop up every year or so. The show has been nominated for literally 100 Primetime Emmys, having won 16. So, those who are looking for broad, salacious Halloween shows have plenty to explore. This series is one of the reason Ryan Murphy persists in the pop consciousness. He's certainly tapping into something.

The 13th season of "American Horror Story," which is not yet titled, will likely premiere on FX sometime in 2025, although no specific release date has been announced just yet. What horror movie premise do you predict Murphy will tap into? I'm going to predict something science-fiction this time. A killer smart house, like in the 1977 film "Demon Seed."