Stranger Things Finale Heads to Theaters — And the Runtime Is Epic

Netflix is turning the Stranger Things Season 5 finale into a New Year’s event. Yes, they’re dropping it on December 31. Yes, it’s feature-length. And yes, you can even watch it in a theater if your idea of ringing in 2026 is Demogorgons and popcorngate.

Finale details

The Season 5 finale is titled "The Rightside Up" and runs 2 hours and 5 minutes. It premieres on Netflix at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT on December 31, 2025. That makes it the second Stranger Things episode to crack the two-hour mark; the longest is still the Season 4 closer at 2 hours and 19 minutes.

Big-screen rollout

Netflix is also putting the finale in more than 500 theaters across the U.S. and Canada. Showtimes begin December 31 at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT to sync with the streaming launch. The theatrical window is a quick two-day splash only: December 31 and January 1, 2026. If you want in, the full theater list and ticket info are at ST5Finale.com.

Where Season 5 left us

Season 5 kicked off with four episodes on November 26, 2025. The story jumps to November 1987, about a year and a half after the Season 4 finale. Hawkins is under military quarantine after parts of the town got breached by the Upside Down. Eleven is laying low, Vecna is off the grid, and as the anniversary of Will going missing creeps up, the weirdness ramps back up. Demogorgons are showing their teeth again, and the whole thing looks like a play in Vecna’s longer game for total control. Translation: this is the last stand setup.

Release timeline (yes, it’s a little confusing)

The first four episodes are already streaming. Netflix says the next three episodes drop on December 25, 2025, and labels them as episodes 5–8. That’s four episode numbers, so either someone typo’d or that batch is actually four. Either way, the finale is locked for December 31.

Who’s in the fight

• Winona Ryder
• David Harbour
• Millie Bobby Brown
• Finn Wolfhard
• Gaten Matarazzo
• Caleb McLaughlin
• Noah Schnapp
• Sadie Sink
• Natalia Dyer
• Charlie Heaton
• Joe Keery
• Maya Hawke
• Brett Gelman
• Priah Ferguson
• Linda Hamilton
• Cara Buono
• Jamie Campbell Bower

Originally reported by Dan Girolamo.