Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan return with the fourth installment of their anthology franchise, and this time the “monster” at the center is one of America’s most enduring true crime figures. Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, now streaming on Netflix, dramatizes the 1892 killings of Andrew and Abby Borden — and hands newcomer Ella Beatty her first leading television role.
The case remains one of the most notorious unsolved crimes in American history. Andrew and Abby were bludgeoned to death inside their Massachusetts home, and Andrew’s 32-year-old daughter Lizzie became the chief suspect. She stood trial for both murders, but a jury acquitted her, leaving the question of who wielded the ax unresolved to this day.
Beatty, the daughter of Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, made her acting debut in Murphy’s 2024 series Feud: Capote vs. The Swans. To step into the role of Lizzie, she immersed herself in the details of the real case.
“Immediately when the audition came up, I listened to every true crime podcast that I could find to learn the facts of the case,” Beatty told Netflix in August 2026. “My job was to explore the character that Ian and Ryan had created and take all the source material about the real person’s life and then translate that into the very fictionalized version of the woman that we created for the show.”
The cast is stacked with familiar Murphy collaborators. Charlie Hunnam plays Andrew after portraying Ed Gein in the previous Monster season, a performance that earned him a 2026 Emmy nomination. Rebecca Hall appears as Lizzie’s stepmother, Abby, while Billie Lourd plays her older sister, Emma.
The series also digs into the theories and relationships surrounding the Borden household. Vicky Krieps plays Bridget “Maggie” Sullivan, the family’s maid, and the show gives Bridget and Lizzie a romantic relationship, including a kiss in episode 2. Jessica Barden plays Lizzie’s close friend, actress Nance O’Neil, and Joey Pollari portrays her maternal uncle John Morse, who stayed at the Borden home and was also considered a suspect.
The season doesn’t confine itself to 1892. Sarah Paulson appears as Aileen Wuornos, moving the story nearly a century beyond the Borden killings. Wuornos was convicted of 6 murders committed between 1989 and 1990, and Murphy said her inclusion broadens the season to other “infamous women who were branded as monsters.”
