Ryan Murphy’s 15 Biggest Shows, Ranked

This 2022 Murphy show has the worst Rotten Tomatoes score out of any of the creator’s titles. The general consensus was that this show, while boasting an impressive cast in Naomi Watts, Bobby Cannavale, Mia Farrow, Jennifer Coolidge, and more, feels thrown together quickly with not much of an interesting statement to make. An adaptation of a previously told story — be it fact or fiction — must justify its existence. Did this one?

Ratched was billed as an origin story for Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but the only similarity Sarah Paulson‘s Mildred Ratched shares with the film counterpart is the name. The drama would have fared better if it didn’t claim to be connected to one of film’s most famous villains.

The political satire takes the game of real-world politics and throws them into a high school setting, then to college and beyond. It was once described as Glee meets House of Cards, which summarizes how much sense it makes pretty well. Still, it was entertaining enough, and performances from Ben Platt, Judith Light, Bette Midler, and Jessica Lange made it more binge-worthy. But it at times felt like it was so rushed to make a point that it forgot to make one, while at the same time trying to make so many.

Hollywood mixes fact and fiction to envision a post-Word War II world where progressive tales can actually get made in Tinsel Town. It’s visually beautiful, but the series fell to Murphy’s typical critiques of late: strong concept, lackluster execution.

Fans and critics disagree about Dahmer. Its critic score on Rotten Tomatoes is 57 percent, where its audience score is 84 percent. What sets the Evan Peters-led Dahmer apart from other stories about one of the United States’ most notorious serial killers is that it shows more respect for the killers’ victims than previous iterations. But Netflix chose not to ask the victims’ families for permission to tell their stories, marking an unethical and controversial decision. While aspects of it have been praised (Niecy Nash-Betts won an Emmy for her excellent performance, Dahmer is gruesome and feels unnecessary overall. It’s Netflix’s second most-watched English language title of all time, but that could also be attributed to the fact that American viewers are perhaps too obsessed with true crime.

The campy, short-lived Scream Queens was canceled after two seasons, but the horror comedy felt like a natural extension of AHS. It boasted a star-studded cast featuring Emma Roberts, Ariana Grande, Jamie Lee Curtis, Billie Lourd, Lea Michele, Abigail Breslin, Keke Palmer, Taylor Lautner, and John Stamos, but its failure may have been a result of being at the wrong network (Fox).

The fashion drama biopic tracked the life and career of Roy Halston Frowick, known just as Halston. Ewan McGregor won an Emmy for his portrayal of the designer whose work redefined American fashion in the 1970s.

Murphy’s true first hit, the campy melodrama dipped into the pathos behind the people who get plastic surgery and the doctors that perform it. Notably, its fifth season was the most lauded, with its location change from Miami to Hollywood revamping the long-running show’s energy.

The Angela Bassett-led first responder procedural is such a departure from Murphy’s signature style, some may forget it (and its spinoff 9-1-1: Lone Star) are Murphy titles. But the series are strong installations to the procedural drama genre. The series are now on split networks, with Lone Star staying on Fox and 9-1-1 switching to ABC. Time will tell how it fares at its new home, but it’s certainly starting out with a bang.

Glee went off the rails near the end, and the show is packed with behind-the-scenes controversy that is still being unveiled, but the musical series did have a strong hold on viewers for many of its initial seasons. It earned 40 Emmy nominations and six wins in its time on air, and it has a special place in the hearts of Millennials and Gen-Zers who grew up obsessed with it.

American Horror Story Season 1, Murder House, is, quite simply, *chef’s kiss*. The finale reveal that Taissa Farmiga‘s Violet was actually dead is one of TV’s all-time great plot twists. Asylum, Coven, Freak Show (a truly slept-on season), and (the far too criticized) Hotel are some of the show’s standout stories. American Horror Stories betrays some of the show’s established lore, while also providing interesting and unexpected backstory to other AHS characters.

The first two seasons of American Crime Story, The People vs. O.J. Simpson and The Assassination of Gianni Versace, were critically praised, earning Emmys for many of its cast and a directing Emmy for Murphy. It also made Paulson a household name after years of holding down the fort on American Horror Story, and it gave Sterling K. Brown the career boost that led to his star turn in This Is Us. Season 3, Impeachment, didn’t earn as much praise, but it did earn five Emmy nominations and one win.

Murphy is no stranger to glamour, but Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans is perhaps his most glamorous of all. Chronicling the feud between Truman Capote (Tom Hollander) and his former friends, coined “The Swans,” the series pulls the curtain back on New York City’s high society women of the ’60s and ’70s with the help of some stellar performances from an all-star cast including the aforementioned Hollander, Naomi Watts, Diane Lane, Chloë Sevigny, Calista Flockhart, Demi Moore, Molly Ringwald, and Chris Chalk.

The anthology series explored ageism and misogyny through the lens of Joan Crawford and Bette Davis‘ bitter rivalry, one of Hollywood’s most famous feuds. The series featured noteworthy, juicy performances from Lange and Susan Sarandon as the What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? co-stars. This show knew the talent it had on its hands, and they made a meal of it.

Pose‘s focus on Black and Latina trans women living through the AIDS epidemic in New York City was a groundbreaking tale of self-love, found family, and the fabulous history of the Ballroom Scene, the inspiration behind Madonna’s “Vogue.” Its subject matter was a historic first for TV, and it made history when M.J. Rodriguez became the first trans actor to win a Golden Globe and Billy Porter became the first openly gay man to win an acting Emmy. It’s Murphy’s most important contribution to TV history, as it opened doors that were tightly closed for years to an underrepresented community.