Ella Beatty, daughter of Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, stars as the accused murderer.

When does The Lizzie Borden Story come out?* *All about the first female-led entry in Netflix’s Monster anthology

Ella Beatty, daughter of Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, stars as the accused murderer.

By Allison DeGrushe

Allison DeGrushe

Allison DeGrushe is a timely SEO writer at **. She has been working at * *since 2025. Her work has previously appeared on Distractify.

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and Brianna Zigler

on August 24, 2026 6:59 p.m. ET

Ella Beatty as Lizzie Borden on ‘Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story’. Credit:

- Netflix’s *Monster *anthology returns on Sept. 17.

- Season 4 stars Ella Beatty as Lizzie Borden, who was tried for the murders of her father and stepmother in 1893.

- Charlie Hunnam, Vicky Krieps, and Rebecca Hall will also appear in the new season.

The fourth chapter of *Monster**, *an anthology series about “monstrous figures” created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, is coming to Netflix in September.

On Oct. 9, 2025, just days after *Monster: The Ed Gein Story* debuted on Netflix, the streamer revealed that production was officially underway on season 4 of the scandalous true crime drama. Titled *Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story*, the installment will be the first in the series to center a woman. In August 2026, Netflix announced that the season would premiere Sept. 17.

Read on for everything we know about *The Lizzie Borden Story* — including who’s playing the infamous accused murderer.

What is *Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story *about?

Vicky Krieps as Maggie Sullivan and Ella Beatty as Lizzie Borden on ‘Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story’.

*Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story* delves into the case of Lizzie Borden, the notorious Massachusetts woman who was accused of brutally murdering her father and stepmother in 1892.

“When the repressed daughter of a wealthy New England family and her rebellious maid find themselves trapped in a house built on humiliation and cruelty, they escape into a fantasy of sex, power, and revenge,” reads the official synopsis. “The gruesome unsolved murders that follow don’t just shock the world — they give birth to an icon who refuses to live imprisoned in a cage, choosing instead to forge her own legend: shocking, monstrous, and gloriously free.”

Born on July 19, 1860, Lizzie grew up in Fall River, Mass., with her sister Emma and their parents, Sarah and Andrew Borden. A little over two years after Sarah’s death in 1863, Andrew, a successful businessman, married Abby Durfee Gray. Lizzie’s relationship with her stepmother eventually became strained. During her 1892 inquest testimony, Lizzie said she had stopped regularly calling Abby “mother” five or six years earlier and instead referred to her as Mrs. Borden, a change she linked to a dispute over property Andrew had acquired for Abby’s half-sister.

What was Lizzie Borden accused of?

Charlie Hunnam as Andrew Borden on ‘Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story’.

On Aug. 4, 1892, Andrew and Abby were found murdered in their home, “brutally chopped about the head and face.” Lizzie said that she had been in the barn loft and only discovered her father’s body after returning to the house. Suspicion soon centered on her. Her sister Emma was out of town at the time of the murders.

Three days later, Lizzie burned a dress. Prosecutors argued that she had destroyed it to conceal evidence, while the defense maintained that it was an old garment stained with paint.

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Lizzie was indicted in December 1892, and her trial became a media sensation when it began the following summer. On June 20, 1893, she was acquitted, and no one else was ever charged in connection with the murders. According to a *New York Times* report, her verdict of “not guilty” was met with a “cheer [that] went up which might have been heard half a mile away through the open windows.”

Lizzie “lived quietly” in Fall River for the rest of her life, according to her *New York Times* obituary. Her sister Emma, who stood by Lizzie during her trial, was quoted as reaffirming her belief in Lizzie’s innocence in a 1913 *Boston Sunday Post* interview published nearly 20 years after the acquittal.

“Lizzie is queer, but as for her being guilty I say ‘no’ and decidedly ‘no,’” she was quoted as saying. “Here is the strongest thing that has impressed me of Lizzie’s innocence: The authorities never found the axe or the implement or whatever it was that figured in the killing. If Lizzie had done that deed, she could never have hidden the instrument of death so the police could never find it.”

Who’s in the *Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story *cast?

Lizzie Borden in June 1893; Ella Beatty in New York City on June 6, 2025.

Bettmann Archive via Getty; Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage

As confirmed by ** in July 2025, Ella Beatty will play Lizzie Borden in the upcoming season.

“Cannot believe I get to work with geniuses such as these,” she wrote in an Instagram post at the time.

The daughter of Hollywood legends Annette Bening and Warren Beatty, she made her screen debut on Murphy’s *Feud: Capote vs. The Swans* and her film debut in Mary Bronstein’s Oscar-nominated *If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You *(2025). In 2024, Beatty appeared in the Broadway production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ *Appropriate *and chased that performance with Off-Broadway turns in Henrik Ibsen’s *Ghosts* and Hannah Moscovitch’s *Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes*.

Speaking with Netflix’s Tudum in August 2026, Beatty expressed her eagerness for the show’s premiere. “I am so excited for viewers to experience our exploration of Lizzie Borden’s story and the questions that her life animates to this day,” she said. “It has been a dream come true to investigate this complicated person’s psychology and to examine an American crime that feels almost mythic in proportion.”

Also appearing on *The Lizzie Borden Story* is Charlie Hunnam, who previously portrayed Wisconsin killer Ed Gein in the anthology. He returns to the franchise to play Lizzie’s father, Andrew Borden.

Sarah Paulson as Aileen Wuornos on ‘Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story’.

Rounding out the ensemble are Rebecca Hall as Lizzie’s stepmother, Abby; Billie Lourd as her sister, Emma; Jessica Barden as Lizzie’s friend, Nance O’Neill; Vicky Krieps as the family’s maid, Bridget Sullivan; and Joey Pollari as uncle John Morse. Krieps, Hunnam, and Pollari all appeared in the previous season of *Monster*. Additionally, frequent Murphy collaborator Sarah Paulson will make an appearance as notorious serial killer Aileen Wuornos.

“The show is exploring a legacy of female rage and reaction to the set of circumstances that they are presented with,” Beatty told Netflix. “I think there’s a connection [between Borden and Wuornos] that Ryan and Ian [Brennan] were interested in mapping and exploring.”

When does *Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story *come out?

Vicky Krieps as Maggie Sullivan and Rebecca Hall as Abby Borden on ‘Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story’.

*Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story* will premiere on Sept. 17.

Is there a trailer for Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story?

Yes, the first trailer for *The Lizzie Borden Story* dropped like an ax on Aug. 20. The two-minute clip centers on Lizzie’s fury toward her parents and teases her relationship with the family’s maid, Bridget.

Later, the men surveying the gory crime scene declare that there’s no way a woman could have inflicted such carnage. “This is the work of a man,” one says.

Also, Sarah Paulson as Aileen Wuornos? This is a Murphy production, all right.

Where can I watch Monster?

*Monster *is available to stream on Netflix.

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Source: “EW Crime”