- Stranger Things season 5 has wrapped production
- Millie Bobbie Brown shares emotional message to mark end of show
- It will be the show’s final season
Stranger Things season 5 has officially wrapped.
The Duffer brothers hit series is creeping towards Netflix and this last outing will be the latest trip to Hawkins for its creators and their young cast.
Debuting back in 2016, Stranger Things wasted no time becoming a pop-culture phenomenon. In addition to being one of the streamer’s biggest exports, it also made breakout stars of its ensemble cast.
Millie Bobby Brown, who plays the show’s telekinetic heroine Eleven, has since headlined her own feature films, including two instalments of Sherlock Holmes spin-off Enola Holmes. As if that wasn’t enough, next year she’ll be seen in the Russo Brothers’ upcoming retro-sci-fi The Electric State with Chris Pratt.
Read more: All we know about Stranger Things creators’ new show
Meanwhile, her co-star Finn Wolfhard – leader of Hawkins’ resident Dungeons and Dragons meet-up group – has found himself a job as a new-era Ghostbuster, while Robin actress Maya Hawkins is one of the most in-demand young stars of her generation.
Considering all of this success, Stranger Things season 5 feels like the right time to end this hugely popular fantasy series – but what will its final episodes entail and when can we see them?
Read on for everything we know so far about our final trip to Hawkins, Indiana…
Stranger Things season 5 release date
Stranger Things season 5 is set for release in 2025 but it doesn’t have a confirmed air date yet.
In early January 2025, reports swirled that the show may arrive in late 2025 thanks to fans spotting a potential release plan lurking inside some Netflix code.
🚨| Did we just uncover the possible release date for Stranger Things 5?
— Stranger Things News (@UpsideDownScoop) January 22, 2025
By examining Netflix’s website code, we discovered that the internal release date for #StrangerThings5 is listed as:
🗓️ Thursday, November 27, 2025
What are your thoughts on this potential date?… pic.twitter.com/Uy4jyANoxr
Shortly after, What’s On Netflix suggested that the show could be split into two separate parts – one set to drop in October and the next in November. The news upset fans who didn’t want to wait even longer to see their favorite show end.
At the time of writing, Netflix has neither confirmed nor denied these plans.
The show wrapped filming in late December 2024, with Netflix releasing a group photograph to mark the occasion.
The cast shared their reactions too, with star Finn Wolfhard saying he was in “shock.”
Eleven actor Millie Bobby Brown shared her own emotional message, saying: “I am nowhere near ready to leave you guys. I love each and every one of you. I’ll forever carry the memories and bonds we have created together as a family. I love you, thank you.”
Read more: Stranger Things cast react to final season’s end
In early 2025, Wolfhard compared ending the show to an emotional Pixar moment.
“It was incredibly emotional, obviously, because it was the last 10 years of my life. Especially also for the creators – the Duffer Brothers started when they were 30 and they’re 40 now so everyone had their long journey and shared it together.
“It was sort of the Toy Story 3 moment of kind of leaving your toys behind a little bit,” he told Variety, referencing the emotional end of Pixar’s third Toy Story film.
“It was really special.”
Finn Wolfhard on the final day of shooting #StrangerThings: "It was sort of the 'Toy Story 3' moment of kind of leaving your toys behind…It was really special." | Variety Studio presented by @audible_com https://t.co/QPEPPYv5Ir pic.twitter.com/7sCfAeX6AW
— Variety (@Variety) January 26, 2025
With Stranger Things season 4 landing back in 2022, this three-year wait for new episodes marks the longest gap yet between series. However, in October 2024, Wolfhard told US outlet People that production on the show’s final outing is almost over and filming has been a “surreal” experience.
“I mean, being able to just be with everyone knowing it is the last season has been really great, but it’s pretty surreal,” explained the Ghostbusters: Afterlife star.
Stranger Things season 5 trailer
Netflix hasn’t released a trailer for Netflix season 5 yet either. However, with production nearing its end, we’re sure to see some footage online soon.
The show officially entered production in January 2024 having been delayed slightly due to 2023’s lengthy Hollywood strikes.
As of October of that same year, filming was still underway, with Netflix taking fans inside the show’s shoot via a special behind-the-scenes video.
Watch it below:
Stranger Things season 5 plot
Much like its trailer and release date, an official plot synopsis for Stranger Things season 5 is still missing. Maybe it’s in the Upside Down?
Speaking of which, the end of Stranger Things season 4 saw this shady alternate reality start to invade Hawkins, so it’s a safe bet that the show’s final adventure will see our heroes try to stop this from happening while defeating Vecna – the big bad that dominated the show’s last story arc.
While unconfirmed, these ideas seem to match up nicely with comments made by show creators, Matt and Ross Duffer. Speaking to The Wrap, the siblings revealed that their initial ideas for how to end the show led to a few teary moments from Netflix executives.
“We pitched it to Netflix and they really responded well to it,” Ross told the outlet. “I mean, it was hard. It’s the end of the story. I saw executives crying who I’ve never seen cry before and it was wild.”
Series co-star David Harbour, who plays policeman Jim Hopper, has shared similar comments, saying the show’s climax is “moving and quite beautiful.”
While speaking to the Happy Sad Confused podcast in October 2024, Harbour doubled-down on these comments, saying a script reading for Stranger Things’ final season left its cast “uncontrollably crying.”
“The end of this episode when we were reading it, just us reading it, about halfway through, people started crying,” said Harbour referring to the script for an episode in the show’s final season, “then about the last 20 minutes, it was just uncontrollably crying, waves of different people.”
Harbour also suggested that the new series will be worth the three-year wait, calling it “such a great season.” He ended by telling the podcast, “you guys will love it.”
According to Hawke, new episodes could be quite long too. Appearing on the Podcrushed podcast in late June, the Inside Out 2 star said that they were “basically eight movies.”
We also know that the show’s return will include a brief time jump – primarily to account for the real amount of time that has elapsed between seasons 4 and 5 and the physical changes of its young-adult cast.
This could mean that Stranger Things season 5 takes us out of its familiar ’80s nostalgia and brings its characters into the ’90s to conclude their story.
Finally, fans have title details for the first episode thanks to the Stranger Things writers’ room X account. At the end of Stranger Things day 2023, they shared a picture that revealed season 5’s first episode will be called ‘The Crawl’.
As part of Stranger Things day 2024, Netflix revealed all of the titles for Stranger Things season 5 – albeit with half of one specific title mysteriously blurred out.
Detailed in the video above, fans learned that in addition to The Crawl, Stranger Things final series will have episodes titled The Vanishing of [blurred out], The Turnbow Trap, Scorcher, Shock Jock, Escape from Camazotz, The Bridge and Rightside Up.
Who could be vanishing during the show’s last-ever series? We’ll have to wait until next year to find out.
Meanwhile, the same teaser video confirmed that the show will take place in the fall of 1987 and not the early 1990s as some outlets had speculated.
Who is starring in the series?
Fans can expect lots of familiar faces to return for Stranger Things’ final season, including Brown as Eleven, Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler, Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson, Noah Schnapp as Will Byers and Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair.
Sadie Sink’s Max Mayfield, Natalia Dyer’s Nany Wheeler, Charlie Heaton’s Jonathan Byers, Joe Keery’s Steve Harrington and Hawke’s Robin Buckley and Priah Ferguson’s Eric Sinclair are also back, as are Winona Ryder’s Joyce Byers, Harbour’s Hopper and Brett Gelman’s Murray Bauman.
Meanwhile, Jamie Campbell Bower will return as Vecna, alongside Cara Buono’s Karen Wheeler and Amybeth McNulty as Vickie.
Newcomers to the Stranger Things world include Terminator 2: Judgement Day star Linda Hamilton, Nell Fisher, Jake Connelly and Alex Breaux.
The show will also feature the return of The Shawshank Redemption filmmaker Frank Darabont who has un-retired to helm key episodes of the show’s new season.
“What really dragged me out of retirement was that my wife and I really love this show,” Darabont recently explained.
“Our content now is so filled with horrible people doing horrible things for greedy reasons but Stranger Things has so much heart.”
