Jessica Lange’s performances on AHS are so magnetic and memorable that it’s hard to believe she has only appeared in  four series of the show. 

It’s even harder to choose a favourite of her very varied roles, from playing a very nosy neighbour with a dark secret in Murder House (with a cameo in Apocalypse), to Elsa Mars, the ruthless leader of a freak show, who manages to steal every scene in an otherwise very poor series.

But it has to be her portrayal of head nun turned in-patient, Sister Jude, in Asylum, and that iconic performance of The Name Game that pushes this role to the top of the list.

One of the best and most criminally underrated characters in AHS history has to be Billie Lourd’s depiction of cult member Winter, sister to cult leader Kai Anderson, played by Evan Peters (in his standout performance of the whole show, in our opinion).

The actors have great chemistry as siblings in Cult, so it’s nice to know that she and Evan are also good friends in real life. So much so that, in a recent chat with Interview magazine (where he was interviewed by Lourd himself), he revealed that her birthday parties were great practice for his now viral drunken scene in Mare of Easttown.

Emma Roberts knows how to give us a queen bee who we love and hate in equal measures.  

Her turn as mean, chain-smoking witch Madison Montgomery in Coven is a big fan favourite, so much so that not only she was brought back from the dead for Apocalypse – she was also given her own series, Scream Queens, which is reported to have been based on her season 3 character.

AHS season 5 takes inspiration from the alleged spooky events rumoured to have occurred at the infamous Cecil Hotel, the subject of the recent controversial Netflix docuseries, Crime Scene: The Vanishing At The Cecil Hotel.

There are many scene-stealing characters in this series, including a cameo from Naomi Campbell, and Denis O’Hare as loveable and complex hotel bartender Liz Taylor, but it’s Lady Gaga as the alluring (and ridiculously glamorous) Countess, who is mesmerising in one of her first ever acting gigs, that we still can’t stop thinking about.

Surely Murphy’s best work in pulling a huge iconic celebrity guest was managing to get Stevie Nicks on board for cameo appearances in both series 3 and 9. 

In her acting debut, Nicks appears as herself (who else), a musical witch who is idolised by the rest of the coven. And who can forget her haunting performance of Gypsy, in a bunker for the 1% of the population who manage to secure a place at the end of the world in Apocalypse. 

Don’t even get us started on her teaching Lily Rabe’s character, Fleetwood Mac super fan Misty Day to twirl in a shawl, in truly iconic Stevie Nicks style. 

The Oscar nominated actor and director Angela Bassett gives truly masterful performances across the various seasons she has been involved in, whether it’s in an acting role, playing a three-breasted performer in Freak Show, or behind the camera (to date she has directed two episodes from the Cult and Roanoke seasons).

But it’s her spellbinding role as Marie Laveau, the revered and vengeful voodoo queen of New Orleans in Coven that is most popular with fans and critics alike, thanks to ability to steal every scene she appears in – an impressive feat considering Coven is one of the most star-studded, as well as one of the most popular with fans.

Jamie Brewer made her TV acting debut on the original season back in 2011’s Murder House as a nosy (and creepy) neighbour. Since then she has played a ventriloquist’s doll, a cult member and clairvoyant witch.

Brewer is incredibly popular with the AHS fandom, especially for her role as Nan in Coven, a smart and kind-hearted witch enrolled in Miss Robichaux’s Academy, who is truly one of the most likeable characters across all of the series. 

The Dirty John actor, who recently starred in Emerald Fennell’s Oscar winning Promising Young Women, is another who pops up throughout Murphy’s canon of work, with roles on 9-1-1 and American Crime Story. 

In the very first season, Britton was nominated for an Emmy for playing a woman beginning a new life at a very creepy house, where she is haunted by a mysterious entity in a gimp suit. 

This is sadly her only American Horror Story appearance, although she does appear again briefly as Vivien in season 7, the Coven/Apocalypse crossover, it’s without doubt one of the best of the franchise. 

Paulson’s working relationship with Ryan Murphy goes way back to the early 00s, when she appeared in early episodes of Nip/Tuck. It’s no surprise then, that she refers to him as her “creative husband” and continues to appear across his cannon of work (and every season of AHS bar one). 

In AHS she has played everything from a pair of conjoined twins, to supreme leader of a witches coven, a drug-addicted, punk-rock ghost, an ambitious medium and a cult member. 

It’s her role as journalist Lana Winters, who unwittingly becomes an in-patient herself when attempting to investigate dark goings on at an asylum that is an absolute must-watch for us. 

Another excellent guest-star turn comes from non other than veteran actor and true icon, Dame Joan Collins. 

The Dynasty star makes a very welcome appearance in two brilliantly fun roles in Apocalypse. First up, she’s Evie Gallant, who gets a space in a bunker after surviving a nuclear holocaust, thanks to her grandson, a hustling celebrity hairdresser played by Peters. 

Spoiler alert, like most characters in American Horror Story, Evie doesn’t make it past a couple of episodes. But that’s OK, because she pops back up as Bubbles McGee instead, the super-glamorous Hollywood actor who is secretly a witch.

Lily Rabe recently starred in The Undoing alongside Nicole Kidman, but she is best known for her roles on American Horror Story, which she’s been involved with since the beginning.

That being said, Rabe often feels like the unsung star of the show, who isn’t showered with Emmy nominations like many of her co-stars. While she may have small roles in many of the seasons, whether she’s a dead socialite haunting Murder House, or the ghost of real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Hotel, her brief appearances are no less lacking in impact. 

Many fans would describe her turn as Stevie Nicks obsessive Misty Day in Coven as her best role so far, but for us it’s her menacing role as Sister Mary Eunice in Asylum. Without giving away spoilers – it’s her role in the latter part of the series which is probably the scariest performance to date. 

Adina Porter’s turn as a TV news broadcaster turned cult member in season 6 may have earned her a very well deserved Emmy nomination, but we want to talk about her scene-stealing role in Roanoke. 

Because, while this season of AHS may have proven to be one of the least popular with fans (not to mention co-star Sarah Paulson), Porter’s deranged depiction of ex-policewoman Lee Harris makes it deliciously entertaining.

A testament to her impressive versatility as an actor, it has to be said that Oscar winning icon Kathy Bates, of Titanic and Misery fame, has by far and away the most bonkers roles across the American Horror Story 9 season run.

Whether she’s playing a talking severed head, a murderous colony leader, a fed-up human hotel clerk, sick of being bullied by the supernatural guests, or a satan-worshipping robot, it’s hard to imagine she hasn’t had great fun playing this Motley Crue of characters. 

Again, it’s almost impossible to choose the best, but, if we were pushed, we would have to say it’s her role in Roanoke, as an actor playing the ghost of the lost colony leader in a TV documentary, who may or may not also be possessed by said colony leader.

Francis Conroy may be best known for her work on cult 00s TV series Six Feet Under, or for her more recent portrayal of Joaquin Phoenix’s character’s mother in Oscar-winning movie The Joker, but its her many, many wacky roles in American Horror Story that have stayed with us the most.

A true character actor, even Ryan Murphy admitted in an interview that Conroy was the actor required to be most versatile across each of the series in terms of appearance, voice and role – which is really saying something with this set of characters.

Whether she’s playing senior witch Myrtle Snow in Coven, or the angel of death in Asylum, she is guaranteed to steal any scene she’s in. For us though, her most memorable role to date has to be the ghostly but loveable maid Moira O’Hara in Murder House and Apocalypse. 

Lena Dunham’s guest appearance on the Cult season was criticised because apparently her accent wasn’t believable enough. 

That aside, her depiction of real-life radical feminist Valerie Solanas, the woman infamous for attempting to murder Andy Warhol in 1968, is truly enthralling (and frightening) – we only wish she could have appeared in more episodes.