Our adventures in Hawkins will soon be coming to a close—but not immediately! Stranger Things was renewed for season 5, and while we’re not ready to say goodbye, it’s almost time to do so. But until we have to officially leave Hawkins, we can thank the Demogorgon that there’s still more to come.
“Seven years ago, we planned out the complete story arc for Stranger Things,” Matt and Ross Duffer wrote in an open letter to fans, per the Hollywood Reporter. “At the time, we predicted the story would last four to five seasons. It proved too large to tell in four, but—as you’ll see for yourselves—we are now hurtling toward our finale.”
Here’s everything we know—in case you need intel immediately.
Season 5 will be Stranger Things’ final season
It’s bittersweet but probably for the best as the young cast is much older now. I can’t wait to see what they do next. Heck, I can’t wait to see what the Duffer Brothers do next!
Even if it’s a Stranger Things spin-off, which Variety says might be happening. “We do have an idea for a spin-off that we’re super excited about…but we haven’t told anyone the idea yet, much less written it,” the Duffers revealed in May 2022. “We think everyone—including Netflix—will be surprised when they hear the concept because it’s very, very different.”
One person did figure it out, though! “Finn Wolfhard (Mike)—who is one crazy-smart kid—correctly guessed what it was going to be about. But aside from Finn, no one else knows!”
Is there a Stranger Things 5 trailer?
Netflix finally dropped the official teaser on July 16, 2025 and Hawkins certainly doesn't look the same anymore. Vecna and the Upside Down have officially taken over, but that doesn't mean our favorite group of locals are going down without a fight.
But the real trailer was released on October 30, and it's a doozy:
What’s going to happen in season 5?
The exact plot is unknown, but the new Stranger Things season 5 trailer certainly revealed a lot. For one thing, it seems to take place completely in Hawkins, which the Duffers initially revealed on the Happy Sad Confused podcast in July 2022. At the time, they also hinted at going back to their season 1 roots, especially when it comes to our favorite characters.
“We wanna go back to a lot of the things we did in season 1,” Matt said, per Entertainment Weekly. “A lot of the original groupings and pairings that we had in season 1—there’s something nice about coming full circle.”
In the trailer, we see Mike, Dustin, Will, and Lucas team up again, as well as Steve and Dustin, Nancy and Jonathan, and, of course, Elle and Hopper. Hawkins appears to have been taken over by military forces, with the Stranger Things crew still fighting to take down Vecna without drawing unwanted attention.
The Duffers also revealed to Collider that things will be moving fairly quickly, even if they do have long run times like in season 4. “We have the opening scene for 5 mapped out. I don’t know if it’ll stay like that, but it’s pretty wild. It’s going to be intense from beginning to end with not so much ramp-up,” Matt said.
Netflix also previously released a teaser poster that seemed to hint that El will go missing at some point. Whether she's safe or not is still unclear, but someone is definitely looking for her and they're making it known.
We did call the phone number in hopes that we'd get some answers, but the call immediately dropped. But then we finally got through after a few tries and got the Hawkins PD!
Thank you for contacting the Hawkins Police Department. Due to the recent 7.4 magnitude earthquake, Hawkins is currently under lockdown to ensure the safety of our residents. The Hawkins Emergency Task Force is working closely with the Hawkins PD to track down missing persons of which Jane Hopper is a priority. We urge you, as a responsible citizen of Hawkins, to assist us in our search to locate her.
Looks like things are just getting...stranger...as we get closer to season 5.
Who is joining the Stranger Things season 5 cast?
At the 2023 Tudum event, Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that his former Terminator series costar Linda Hamilton would be joining the show, and she had a special video message to all the fans.
In the trailer, fans can see Linda handling a gun in what looks like a military uniform. It seems like she's part of the force tasked with quarantining Hawkins.
And then there’s someone else who we actually have no clue about just yet! In an update on December 13, 2023, Ross Duffer posted the cast list while revealing that season 5 would officially begin filming after the holidays. But there’s a mysterious name that’s crossed out...
Whether it’s someone new or someone we have seen before still remains to be revealed, but we definitely have some theories!
When will Stranger Things 5 be released?
The season will be split into three different parts with the first 4 episodes set to be released on November 26, 2025 (the day before Thanksgiving), the next three episodes on Christmas Day, and the final episode on New Year's Eve. Happy holidays indeed!
How long will the Stranger Things 5 episodes be?
The Duffer brothers revealed the Stranger Things 5 episode titles on Instagram on October 13, along with the run times of the first four episodes, to be released as Part 1. They are as follows:
- “Chapter One: The Crawl” — 1 hour and 8 minutes
- “Chapter Two: The Vanishing of...” — 54 minutes
- “Chapter Three: The Turnbow Trap” — 1 hour and 6 minutes
- “Chapter Four: Sorcerer” — 1 hour and 23 minutes
- “Chapter Five: Shock Jock”
- “Chapter Six: Escape from Camazotz”
- “Chapter Seven: The Bridge”
- “Chapter Eight: The Rightside Up”
I'm freaking out already.
