Get ready for a little Upside Down with your Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve celebrations.
Netflix announced that Stranger Things 5, the fifth and final season of its massively popular ’80s-set sci-fi adventure series Stranger Things, will play out in three “volumes” for your holiday-viewing pleasure. The first arrives on Nov. 26, the second drops on Dec. 25, and the grand finale on Dec. 31. The news came as part of the streaming service’s Tudum 2025 live event Saturday previewing its upcoming movies and shows. The date reveal came with a two-minute trailer tracing the events of the previous seasons and teasing the horrors yet to come.
Here’s what you need to know before you return to Hawkins to finish the story that began way back in 2016.
What happened in Season 4?
Stranger Things Season 4, which came out in the summer of 2022, found the kids uncovering the truth about why Hawkins is haunted by the Upside Down. In 1979, Henry Creel, Dr. Brenner’s (Matthew Modine) first telekinetic subject, killed all the other kids in the lab except Eleven, who used her powers to inadvertently banish him to an alternate dimension, which became the Upside Down as he rebuilt himself and gained power. Now, seven years later, his plan is to unleash the terror of the Upside Down on the human world. To do so, he needs to form four gates between the dimensions, which he creates by killing people at the sites where he wants them. One of his targets is Max Mayfield. Her friends spend much of the season trying to protect her, until Eleven regains her powers and is able to fight Henry, who the kids have named Vecna. Eleven enters Max’s mind fight Vecna, but he overpowers her and possesses Max, who dies during the struggle. Everyone bands together to seemingly kill Vecna, and Eleven is able to bring Max back to life, though she remains in a coma. Unfortunately, her death created the fourth gate, Vecna is still alive, and the Upside Down is coming through to attack Hawkins.
What do we know about what’s coming up in Season 5?
Season 5 is set in the fall of 1987, about a year and a half after the events of Season 4. Other than that, though, plot details are being kept under lock and key with a demogorgon guarding them.
Who’s behind Stranger Things Season 5?
Stranger Things Season 5 is executive-produced by creators Matt and Ross Duffer, who will write and direct the first two and last two episodes, writer Curtis Gwinn, and Shawn Levy, who will direct at least one episode. Other confirmed directors include Prey‘s Dan Trachtenberg and The Walking Dead developer and The Shawshank Redemption director Frank Darabont, who is coming out of retirement to helm two episodes of Season 5.
Who’s in the Stranger Things Season 5 cast?
The cast of the final season will find all of the series regulars returning, including Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers and David Harbour as Jim Hopper, the main adults; Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven, Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler, Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson, Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair, Noah Schnapp as Will Byers, and Sadie Sink as Max Mayfield, the core kids; and Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler, Charlie Heaton as Jonathan Byers, Joe Keery as Steve Harrington, and Maya Hawke as Robin Buckley, the older kids. The cast also includes Brett Gelman as Murray Bauman and Priah Ferguson as Erica Sinclair, with Cara Buono as Karen Wheeler, Amybeth McNulty as Vickie, and Jamie Campbell Bower as the villainous Vecna, aka Subject 001, aka Henry Creel. And in keeping with the Stranger Things tradition of adding an ’80s icon every season, Terminator star Linda Hamilton will join the cast in an as-yet-undisclosed role.
What are the Stranger Things Season 5 episode titles?
Season 5 will consist of eight supersized episodes, which Maya Hawke has described as “basically eight movies.”
Episode 1: “The Crawl”
Episode 2: “The Vanishing of ___”
Episode 3: “The Turnbow Trap”
Episode 4: “Sorcerer”
Episode 5: “Shock Jock”
Episode 6: “Escape from Camazotz”
Episode 7: “The Bridge”
Episode 8: “The Rightside Up”
What will come after Stranger Things?
The flagship Stranger Things is coming to an end, but the franchise is growing. A stage play, Stranger Things: The First Shadow, opened on London’s West End in 2023 and moved to Broadway in April 2025, where it’s set to run through March 2026. The show is written by Kate Trefry, who is also a writer on Season 5, with a story by The Duffer Brothers, Jack Thorne, and Trefry. There’s also an animated series inspired by ’80s Saturday morning cartoons and a live-action spinoff in the works, though details about both are scarce.