After almost three years of waiting, we have *finally* been given an update on Stranger Things 5, with Netflix officially announcing when we’ll be returning to Hawkins.
Despite the secrecy surrounding the fifth and final instalment of the franchise, series creators Ross and Matt Duffer have shared a handful of highly anticipated glimpses of the new season, and it is safe to say that we can’t get enough.
With the production of the fourth season of Stranger Things taking over two years, the long-awaited news of the cast’s return to Hawkins has come as a welcome reprieve to fans who have been eagerly counting down the days until their last adventure.
As we continue to analyse the updates for hidden clues, scroll down for everything you need about the upcoming Stranger Things 5.
Will there be a Season 5 of Stranger Things?
Stranger Things is officially returning for Season 5, with production on the series set to wrap in December 2024.
Speaking ahead of the Season 4 release in 2022, the Duffer Brothers confirmed that Stranger Things 5 would be the last instalment of the beloved saga.
“Seven years ago, we planned out the complete story arc for Stranger Things. At the time, we predicted the story would last four to five seasons. It proved too large to tell in four… Season 4 will be the penultimate season. Season 5 will be the last,” they shared in a statement.
What is the plot of Stranger Things 5?
In celebration of the release dates being revealed, we also have a full synopsis released by Netflix.
“The fall of 1987. Hawkins is scarred by the opening of the Rifts, and our heroes are united by a single goal: find and kill Vecna. But he has vanished — his whereabouts and plans unknown. Complicating their mission, the government has placed the town under military quarantine and intensified its hunt for Eleven, forcing her back into hiding.
“As the anniversary of Will’s disappearance approaches, so does a heavy, familiar dread. The final battle is looming — and with it, a darkness more powerful and more deadly than anything they’ve faced before. To end this nightmare, they’ll need everyone — the full party — standing together, one last time.”
In terms of action, Matt Duffer revealed to The Guardian that the latest season is “like season one on steroids” and is “the biggest it’s ever been in terms of scale.”
Speaking to Netflix’s TUDUM ahead of production, the Duffer Brothers also revealed that the final season will utilise material and plot points originally slated for previous seasons.
“For Season 5, we’re pulling from a lot of those big Season 2 ideas. A lot of our big ending stuff has pulled from stuff that we thought was going to be in Season 2,” they shared, leading fans to believe that the fifth and final season will place a large focus on Will Byers’ connection to the Upside Down and the history of how Hawkins Lab came to be.
When is Stranger Things 5 coming out?
Big news! We finally have a release date for Stranger Things 5.
Four episodes will be released on November 27, three episodes on Boxing Day and the finale episode on New Year’s Day. If that’s not a way to ring in the New Year, then I don’t know what is.
These dates are all Australian-based, but check out the times here if you are tuning in from elsewhere.
How many episodes will there be in Stranger Things 5?
Despite being rumoured as the longest run-time season, Netflix confirmed on Stranger Things Day 2024 that the upcoming fifth season will consist of eight episodes.
In exciting news, the production company also revealed the titles of each of the new episodes, giving fans a cryptic teaser of what’s to come in the epic Hawkins finale.
The episode titles for Stranger Things 5 are as follows:
- 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 has the cast said about Stranger Things Season 5?
Buckle up, nerds. It looks like we’re in for an emotional ride based on the insider clues from the cast of Stranger Things.
Ahead of his final week on set, Gaten Matarazzo gave fans a revealing insight into the next chapter in Dustin’s story.
“He’s still the guy we know and love, but there is a context of trauma and that weight of loss that seems to carry on with him through the early process of the season… I think a lot of people, myself included, can really resonate with and understand what that confusion and rage [surrounding grief] can feel like because it’s an enraging thing to deal with,” he told The Direct.
Teasing what fans can expect for Season 5, Gaten continued, “I think it’s a different vibe for sure because, obviously, things are a lot different going into this season comparitvely to the last ones… In Season 4, we kind of see there are small victories around in the sense that it seems like Vecna has been subdued, but also, there’s a big, major loss where we see the rifts throughout Hawkins… and so we’re starting this season in the aftermath of that.”
In Brown’s words, season 5 is “more of an adventure and more of a mission, which I really like.”
Millie Bobby Brown has also expressed to People that, “Everybody is really put into the thick of it. No one is sitting back on a walkie-talkie,” she teased. “Everyone is full throttle, going for it.”
Speaking to Inverse in December 2024, David Harbour revealed that the scale of the final season is “going to be huge.”
“We’ve been shooting it for a long time. We’re tying up all the threads that we’ve laid, all the pipe that we’ve laid throughout 10 years of word, and they’re really doing it on a grand scale.”
Despite the grandiosity of the gang’s last adventure in Hawkins, David added, “We also have scenes in there that are very simple. The first season was really about these small Midwestern people in the 80s who had really good values, but we really struggled with a lot of emotional complexity.”
“There’s a lot of compassion and love between these people and a lot of damage… There a lot of relationships that [The Duffer Brothers] know they need to tie up, and I think they’re doing a very good job at that,” he continued.
David’s latest update came one month after he first gave a brief glimpse into Stranger Things Season 5 on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. Although he remained vague on the details of his storyline, he did share how the cast reacted to the season’s final episode.
“The end of this episode when we were reading it – just us reading it – about halfway through, people started crying, then about the last 20 minutes, it was just uncontrollably crying, waves of different people – Noah Schnapp being my favourite,” he shared.
“I think part of that also is the fact that these kids, it was their childhood. They started the show when they were 11 and 12, and here we are reading the finale.”
Earlier in the year, Maya Hawke, who plays Robin in the series, also gave fans an insight into the scale of the production.
“We’re making, basically, eight movies. The episodes are very long,” she told Podcrushed in June 2024, adding, “It takes a long time to write each season, and it takes a long time to shoot them.”
