FX’s Feud is a strange beast: a prestige anthology series that treats Hollywood gossip as high drama, and it mostly earns that ambition. The first season, Bette and Joan, follows the legendary rivalry between Joan Crawford and Bette Davis from the early days of their careers through the making of Baby Jane and beyond, climaxing in an Oscar vendetta that still echoes today. It is a portrait of two women who could not stand each other, and it is utterly compelling.
Trailer, via FX Networks.
Crawford and Davis on Screen
Jessica Lange plays Joan Crawford, and Susan Sarandon plays Bette Davis. The pairing is electric. Lange brings Crawford’s brittle control and her lifelong need to prove herself; Sarandon captures Davis’s fierce competitiveness and her refusal to play nice. Together they drive a story that feels less like history and more like a slow-motion car crash.
The season is structured as an anthology, which means each episode focuses on a different period in the feud. This allows the show to jump forward and backward in time, showing how the rivalry shaped both women’s lives across decades. The narrative is not chronological, and that nonlinearity works in its favor. It keeps the tension high by constantly circling back to the wound.
The Cast and the Supporting Players
The supporting cast is a murderer’s row of talent. Judy Davis, Jackie Hoffman, Alfred Molina, Stanley Tucci, and Alison Wright fill out the world around Crawford and Davis. Catherine Zeta-Jones and Kathy Bates appear as Geraldine Page and Olivia de Havilland, respectively. The show leans heavily on its actors, and they deliver.
Tom Hollander plays Truman Capote, and Naomi Watts plays Babe Paley. Diane Lane appears as Slim Keith, and Treat Williams shows up as Bill Paley. Calista Flockhart plays Lee Radziwill, Demi Moore plays Ann Woodward, and Molly Ringwald plays Joanne Carson. Russell Tovey rounds things out as John O’Shea.
Every actor gets a moment, and every moment counts. The ensemble is so large that it could have collapsed under its own weight, but the writers keep everyone focused on the central conflict.
The Writing and the Craft
Ryan Murphy, Jaffe Cohen, and Michael Zam created Feud, and the show reflects their strengths: sharp dialogue, a keen eye for character detail, and a willingness to let the ugliness of fame sit uncomfortably on screen. The first season is adapted from the well-documented rivalry between Crawford and Davis, and the show sticks closely to that record.
The show is also visually sumptuous. The costumes, the sets, the lighting — everything is rendered with care. It is a period piece that looks expensive, and it is. The production values are top-tier, and they serve the story rather than distract from it.
The Performances
Lange and Sarandon are the engine. Their performances are the reason the show works. Lange plays Crawford as a woman who built a career on reinvention, and Sarandon plays Davis as a woman who built a career on survival. They are both doing something different here than in their usual work, and both are excellent.
Sarandon spoke about the challenge of playing Davis. “She’s so big and she really was so big,” she said. “So I tried not to make her a caricature or someone a female impersonator would do … That was my fear, that she would just be kind of one-dimensional.” The fear is real, and Sarandon avoids it. Her Davis is a force of nature, not a cartoon.
Lange’s Crawford is colder. She describes Crawford’s childhood as brutal, masked by a beautiful veneer. “So she was always on, which is a tremendous burden in and of itself, but always there was this thing lurking underneath of being this poverty-stricken, abused, unloved, abandoned young child and woman.” That tension informs every scene she plays. Crawford is always performing, and Lange plays it perfectly.
The Legacy and the Reception
Feud premiered on FX on March 5, 2017, and the first season ran for 16 episodes over two seasons. It was renewed for a second season, Capote vs. The Swans, which aired in 2024. The first season was critically acclaimed, with major praise for Lange and Sarandon’s performances. It received 18 nominations at the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards and won two, including Outstanding Hairstyling and Makeup (Non-Prosthetic).
The show also received nominations for six Critics’ Choice Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Television Critics Association Awards. The reception was strong, and the awards reflect that.
The show is a cultural artifact in its own right. It tells a story that has been told many times, but it tells it with a fresh angle. The rivalry between Crawford and Davis is well documented, but Feud finds new ways to dramatize it. The result is a show that is both entertaining and thoughtful.
The Bottom Line
Feud is not perfect. The anthology format can feel episodic, and some episodes lean harder on spectacle than others. The show also relies heavily on its stars, and when the lead performances dip, the whole thing dips with them. But when it clicks, it clicks hard.
The show is a masterclass in character study. Crawford and Davis are both deeply flawed, and the show refuses to romanticize either of them. It is a portrait of a rivalry that defined two careers, and it is a portrait of a time when Hollywood was a far more brutal place.
The show is worth watching for the performances alone. Lange and Sarandon are at the peak of their powers here, and they deserve the acclaim they received. But the show is also worth watching for the craft, the writing, and the sheer ambition of telling this story at all.
Key Facts Box
- Premiere: March 5, 2017
- Seasons: 2
- Episodes: 16 total
- First season: Bette and Joan
- Second season: Capote vs. The Swans (aired 2024)
- Network: FX
- Creators: Ryan Murphy, Jaffe Cohen, Michael Zam
- Nominations: 18 at the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards
- Wins: 2, including Outstanding Hairstyling and Makeup (Non-Prosthetic)
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
