Stranger Things Season 5: New Featurette Teases the Epic Final Chapter
Netflix just dropped a featurette priming the endgame as Stranger Things heads into season 5—the final chapter and one last ride through Hawkins. Brace for the Upside Down’s last stand.
After two strikes, a year-long shoot, and a lot of rumors, Stranger Things 5 finally has real dates. Netflix is splitting the last season into three holiday drops and putting them out at prime time. Subtle? Not really. Effective? Probably.
Release plan
- Volume 1: November 26, 2025 at 8:00 pm ET
- Volume 2: December 25, 2025 at 8:00 pm ET
- Series finale: December 31, 2025 at 8:00 pm ET
How we got here
Season 5 is the end of the line for Hawkins. Production got pushed several months by the writers and actors strikes, then finally kicked off at the start of 2024. The Duffers and company shot for a full twelve months, wrapping in late December 2024. Word is the creators have been sprinting to get everything ready for this year, and now we know exactly when we get it. To kick off the push, Netflix dropped a new featurette to tease the final run.
Quick refresher on the show
Stranger Things started as the Duffers' love letter to 80s genre movies: kids on bikes, government secrets, and a small Indiana town sitting on top of a nasty supernatural wound. It all spiraled out from one missing kid and a telekinetic girl who wandered into their lives, and the consequences have been getting bigger (and deadlier) ever since.
What season 5 is actually about
We are in the fall of 1987. Hawkins is literally torn open by the Rifts, and everyone is united around one mission: find Vecna and finish him. The problem is he has vanished, and no one knows what he is up to.
Making things worse, the government has thrown Hawkins under a military quarantine and turned up the heat on finding Eleven, pushing her back into hiding. As the anniversary of Will Byers' disappearance creeps up, so does that heavy, familiar feeling that something truly awful is coming. The showdown is imminent, the threat is uglier than anything they have faced, and the only way through it is the full party standing together one last time.
Directors and 'inside baseball' stuff
Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane, Prey) popped in to direct an episode while also juggling not one but two new Predator movies. Meanwhile, Frank Darabont broke an 11-year directing hiatus to take the helm of an episode. That is a wild pair of gets for a final season, and very on-brand for a show that has always mixed young blood with old-school genre royalty.
Who is making it
Stranger Things is produced by Monkey Massacre Productions and 21 Laps Entertainment. The Duffer Brothers created the series and executive produce alongside Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen for 21 Laps, plus Iain Paterson and Curtis Gwinn.
New faces in Hawkins
Season 5 adds Linda Hamilton (yes, that Linda Hamilton from The Terminator), Nell Fisher (Evil Dead Rise), newcomer Jake Connelly, and Alex Breaux (Joe Pickett). Not exactly subtle casting for a final victory lap, and I am not complaining.
The bottom line
Netflix is treating this like event TV: three holiday premieres, all at 8 pm ET. After a year of filming and nearly a decade of build-up, the show looks set to go out swinging. The featurette suggests they are leaning into the horror and the nostalgia at the same time, which, if they stick the landing, is exactly how this story should end.