After 10 years, Stranger Things has come to an end, as the final episode of the show was released on Netflix on New Year's Day 2026. The fifth and final season is now available to stream, with fans still trying to figure out the biggest mysteries left by the story – you can read all about what happened in the finale in our Stranger Things season 5 finale ending explained guide.
It's time to say goodbye to Eleven, Mike and the rest of the gang, as one of the best shows on Netflix has officially ended for good, although the future of the franchise still shines bright. While the animated show Stranger Things: Tales from '85 is heading to our screens, a spin-off of the show is now in the works, although it's not about Holly Wheeler or Montauk.
Stranger Things season 5 release date
Stranger Things season 5 volume 1 was released on Netflix on November 26, 2025, while volume 2 landed on Christmas Day (December 25, 2025) and the final episode, officially titled 'The Rightside Up', arrived on New Year's Day (January 1, 2026).
The last-ever installment of the show was a long time coming, and the initial release period was delayed a fair few times due to Hollywood writers' strikes. Though Netflix seemed to be keen to make up for the long wait, since the streamer agreed to screen the final episode in theatres across the US. Debuting in roughly 600 cinemas, Stranger Things: The Finale generated $20-25 million in revenue, setting a new record for a Netflix, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Stranger Things season 5 reviews
As season 5 released in three sections, each launch got its own batch of reviews. In our Stranger Things season 5 volume 1 review, we called the first four episodes an "insanely ambitious" start "with blockbuster set-pieces, riveting twists, heartbreaking performances, and a cliffhanger that will make you wish it was Christmas Day already."
Our three-star Stranger Things season 5 volume 2 review was less enthusiastic, suggesting that the follow-up three episodes "tread water" and are too concerned with setting up the finale than they are being good in their own right.
Finally, in our Stranger Things season 5 finale review, we gave the episode 3.5 stars, noting: "The Stranger Things series finale is a mix of some deadly serious storytelling and poorly conceived action scenes, alongside some poignant emotion and satisfying wrap-up. In other words, it was a finale."
Meanwhile, fans are divided over the final episode, with some very pleased with how the show came to a close, whereas others feel robbed of a major final battle. Season 5 stands at 84% on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest of the series.
Is Stranger Things season 5 the final season?
Yes, Stranger Things season 5 is the final season of the series. In terms of Eleven, her friends at Hawkins, and the Upside Down, Stranger Things season 5 will be the last chapter in this story. In an interview with SFX Magazine, Matt and Ross Duffer said the "book is closed" on the series as we know it. "This really is the end of the story of Eleven and Mike and Lucas and Dustin and Steve, and Hawkins specifically." But that doesn't mean it's the last Netflix series that will be set in the Stranger Things universe.
When announcing the looming end of the Netflix show, the Duffer Brothers hinted at a potential spin-off series: "There are still many more exciting stories to tell within the world of Stranger Things. New mysteries, new adventures, new unexpected heroes."
It was revealed earlier this year that the Duffer brothers would be jumping ship from Netflix to Paramount, but they won't be abandoning the long-mooted Stranger Things spin-off, with the brothers even offering a rare update, claiming that the spin-off won't expand the Stranger Things Universe's "insanely convoluted mythology” but instead “live in a bit of a different world,” with "connective tissue" to the original show.
But we do know that a Stranger Things animated series, produced by the Duffer brothers, is on the way, titled Stranger Things: Tales From '85. In celebration of Stranger Things Day 2025, Netflix released the first look at the series, showing animated, younger versions of Eleven, Will, Dustin, Mike, Lucas, and Max. However, the original cast will not be returning to voice the characters.
Stranger Things season 5 trailer
Released on December 30, 2025, the final trailer of Stranger Things teased the final episode of the show. The footage focuses on Eleven, with Hopper (David Harbour) asking her to "fight one last time," with images from previous season making us emotional ahead of the end.
"Life has been so unfair to you," Hopper tells her. "Your childhood was taken from you. You've been attacked, manipulated by terrible people, but you never let it break you. Fight for the days on the other side of this. Fight for a world beyond Hawkins. Let's end this, kid."
Prior to the final trailer, we got a good look at Volume 2 through another trailer. The clip, which you can see above, took us back to the Upside Down, which looked to be bursting at the seams, with a giant, demonic cloud hanging over it. Elsewhere, Max and Holly were shown still trapped in Henry Creel's mindscape, but it seemed as though he had found out about Holly's meeting with Max as he morphs from Mr. Whatsit into his blood-stained One persona.
The trailer was also packed full of action, with Demogorgons running amok in Hawkins, Eleven asking Eight to team up with her, and Nancy popping out of the top of Murray's truck looking like Rambo. Vecna, on the other hand, looked to be closer than ever to creating his "new world."
In terms of the official promo, Netflix dropped the full-length Stranger Things season 5 trailer on October 30. The video opened with Mike talking about how awful it is to be "stuck" in military quarantine, which is in place to stop the Upside Down from leaking beyond Hawkins. But it's not enough to stop Vecna. In a montage, we saw glimpses of the epic battle from volume 1.
The full list of episode titles is:
- Stranger Things season 5 episode 1: 'The Crawl'
- Stranger Things season 5 episode 2: 'The Vanishing of Holly Wheeler'
- Stranger Things season 5 episode 3: 'The Turnbow Trap'
- Stranger Things season 5 episode 4: 'Sorcerer'
- Stranger Things season 5 episode 5: 'Shock Jock'
- Stranger Things season 5 episode 6: 'Escape From Camazotz'
- Stranger Things season 5 episode 7: 'The Bridge'
- Stranger Things season 5 episode 8: 'The Rightside Up'
Stranger Things season 5 plot
In the run-up to Season 5 hitting Netflix, the streamer and series creators, the Duffer brothers, kept very tight-lipped on plot details. Netflix released a synopsis, which read, "Scarred by the opening of the Rifts, our heroes are united by a single goal: find and kill Vecna. But he has vanished – his whereabouts and plans unknown. 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."
Now that we've seen the first two Volumes, however, it's clear that the description above only really covers those, leaving the events of the series finale most of a mystery to even the most savant of viewers. With Vol. 3 still 5 days away, you may need a little refresher on the seven episodes that proceed it. Don't worry, that's where we come in...
Warning, the following section contains major spoilers for Stranger Things season 5 volume 1.
Stranger Things season 5 takes place 18 months after the events of season 4, where we saw every group in Nevada, Indiana, and Russia, respectively, teaming up to take down Vecna. However, as Will states towards the end of episode 9, Vecna is far from defeated, and the gate to the Upside Down is still very much open.
Set in the fall of 1987, Hawkins is under military lockdown, where soldiers are stationed at Hawkins Lab, where they are investigating the Upside Down under the orders of one Dr. Kay. But our Hawkins heroes have a way to bypass this and take on operations of their own. Using their new radio show, Steve and Robin are able to communicate with Hopper, Eleven, and the rest of the gang to let them know when the military is opening their mock-up gate to the Upside Down. In one of their drills, Hopper enters the Upside Down, but ends up getting stuck down there, leaving Eleven no choice but to rescue him.
Meanwhile, Mike and Nancy's little sister, Holly, has been talking to an imaginary friend called Mr. Whatsit, who turns out to be Vecna. Holly is taken to the Upside Down by a Demogorgon, and Karen and Ted Wheeler are harmed in the process. However, despite Vecna keeping Holly's body hooked up in the Upside Down (just like he did with Will in 1983), Holly's subconscious is held inside Henry Creel's mindscape, which is stuck in the '50s. The twist is that's where Max is, too, and has been ever since she was put in a coma at the end of season 4. Max tells Holly who Henry really is, and explains that the only place she is safe i his mind is inside a mysterious cave.
Down below, Hopper and Eleven are still stuck in the Upside Down, where they find a tall, fleshy wall. With help from Dustin, who drove into the Upside Down with Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan, we learn that the wall actually surrounds the Hawkins Lab, where the military is testing on creatures and keeping number Eight (Kali) hostage, connected to lots of tubes, presumably using her power to open and close the gate. In an interview with SFX magazine, Matt Duffer said going forward, "Kali shifts things a lot for Eleven, and I think it'll be surprising for people to see how she ultimately fits into the story."
During this time, Will Byers is investigating Holly's disappearance, and finds out that she was taken by the same 'imaginary friend' who has been trying to manipulate a whole bunch of kids from Holly's class in the same way. The military catches wind of this and rounds up the kids. However, Will, Mike, and Lucas infiltrate the barracks and try and save the kids before the Demogorgons come for them.
Volume 1 comes to a fiery end when Vecna makes his dramatic entrance from the Upside Down into Hawkins. He tells Will of his evil plan to take twelve "weak" and easily controlled" children from Hawkins to use as "perfect vessels" in order to take over the world. He says Will showed him this was possible all of those years earlier. Whilst this conversation is happening, the Demogorgons kidnap the children and take them to the Upside Down. However, before the creatures can kill Joyce, Lucas, Mike, and more, Will is able to harness Vecna's powers and destroy them. Check out our Stranger Things season 5 volume 1 ending explained for more on that.
Now that Will has powers, there is a chance he may be the one to destroy Vecna. While on Hot Ones, star Noah Schnapp let slip that the Mind Flayer actually gave Henry Creel his powers, which pushed him to become Vecna. Does this mean Will could become just as evil as One?
Warning, the following section contains major spoilers for Stranger Things season 5 volume 2.
In Volume 2, Dustin stumbles on Dr. Brenner's research notebook in the Upside Down and learns that the dark dimension isn't another version of reality but actually a wormhole; a bridge if you will, between Hawkins and a mysterious new realm Dustin dubs the Abyss. (If you've seen Stranger Things: The First Shadow on stage, then you'll know that this is also sometimes referred to as Dimension X).
Armed with the research, the group then propose that the demogorgons and the Mind Flayer likely hailed from the Abyss, and that it's also where Eleven banished Henry to all those years ago. The evil entities, they reckon, have been using the Upside Down as an entryway of sorts ever since, which leads to them plotting to destroy the Upside Down by climbing the Squawk's radio tower, jumping through to the Abyss, finding and killing Vecna, and saving the world. No biggie.
Surprisingly, Vol. 2 made no reference to the fact that Joyce and Hopper knew Henry Creel in school, a major plot point from Stranger Things: The First Shadow, that fleshes out the big bad's backstory. In episode 4, Max was pulled into a memory of Vecna's from 1959, where Joyce is handing out flyers for a production starring Henry, Hop, and more; establishing one of the real-life play's central storylines as canon.
Also in Vecna's mindscape, Max comes across a cave, which Vecna is terrified of. In First Shadow, we learn that when Henry was a young boy, he went missing for a short while and was found wounded by the entrance to some vast tunnels. Could this be the monster's kryptonite? We will have to wait and see.
"I'd spent so much time thinking about his childhood during filming... We were in lockdown before we started shooting season 4, so I had six months to stew on this. I would ask myself questions about the parental relationship, about this relationship with the primary caregivers," Vecna star Jamie Campbell Bower previously explained to SFX magazine.
Warning, the following section contains major spoilers for Stranger Things season 5 finale.
The gang's plan is in motion as the final episode of Stranger Things starts. Hopper and Murray take Eleven and her psychic sister Kali to Hawkins lab in the Upside Down, so they can use the sensory deprivation tank there and invade Vecna’s mind, alongside Max, who knows her way around from her time living in Camazotz. They plan to rescue the minds of the children trapped by Vecna, while everyone else climbs the tower and enters The Abyss to save the kids’ bodies, and also kill the villain.
However, Vecna tricks Hopper into breaking the sensory deprivation tank, yanking Eleven, Kali, and Max out of his mind – and leaving the children defenseless. Luckily for them Holly takes charge. While Vecna fights his fears of the cave the kids are hiding out in, she takes them to the abandoned mine and gets them out.
At the same time, Will tries to reason with Henry, who explains that he and the Mind Flayer are one and the same, turning the weird dark castle he constructed in The Abyss into a Kaiju version of The Mind Flayer.
Back in the Upside Down, Kali is shot by Dr. Kay's soldiers, and seems to die. At the roof with Murray, Eleven realizes she can use the various floating rocks to jump from the roof of Hawkins Lab all the way up to The Abyss, where Nancy and the rest of the gang are doing their best to fight off the monster. Eleven jumps, faces The Mind Flayer head on and enters its body where her last fight against Vecna is to take place.
The team beats The Mind Flayer, giving Eleven the opening she needs to impale Vecna on one of the inside teeth things growing in his cave. It's Joyce who delivers the final blow with an axe, chopping the villain's head off.
Here comes the last stage of the plan – blow up the Upside Down. That means that Eleven has a decision to make, and she decides to sacrifice herself, staying inside the portal while the wormhole collapses, only giving one last psychic goodbye to Mike.
Things pick up 18 months later, meaning it’s time for high school graduation, where Dustin delivers a speech about friendship that ends in him ripping off his graduation robe to reveal a "Hellfire Lives" T-shirt.
Nancy, Jonathan, Robin, and Steve catch up on the roof of the WSQK – Steve is coaching the local baseball team, Jonathan is at NYU for film, Robin is at Smith, and Nancy has dropped out of Emerson to get a job as a trainee at the Herald. They promise to meet each other once a month in Philadelphia.
Over to Enzo’s, Joyce and Hopper are having a celebratory meal. He reveals he's been offered a chance to be the chief of police in Montauk, and asks Joyce to marry him. She accepts!
Finally, the D&D party, who have one final post-graduation game, where Lucas, Max, Dustin and Will pressure Mike to give them a more dramatic ending. So Mike tells stories, and it’s up to the viewer to decide whether they’re true or not. Lucas and Max just become more and more in love. Dustin excels at college, but still hangs out with Steve. Will moves to a bigger town where they accept him for being gay, and he even gets a boyfriend. And as for Mike, he becomes a writer and writes his friends’ adventures.
And there's one more: Eleven might not be dead. Mike recalls that Eleven was standing in the range of the psychic dampeners when she contacted him with her mind to say goodbye. But that’s impossible, right? Instead, he posits that what happened is Kali didn't die, but used her illusion powers to fake her death. She then used them to make Eleven invisible so she could sneak away to safety and say goodbye to Mike to sell the lie, while Kali again used her powers to make it look like Eleven was on the other side of the portal, ultimately consumed by the destruction of the Upside Down. Is that what happened? Again, it's up to the viewer to decide. But the D&D group all believes that's what happened.
They put their binders away and head upstairs as Holly, Derek, and friends begin their own game of D&D. Mike smiles, and shuts the door.
Stranger Things season 5 cast
Stranger Things season 5 welcomed back Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven, Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler, Sadie Sink as Max Mayfield, Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair, Noah Schnapp as Will Byers, Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson, Maya Hawke asRobin Buckley, Joe Keery as Steve Harrington, Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler, Charlie Heaton as Jonathan Byers,, Brett Gelman as Murray Bauma, Priah Ferguson as Erica Sinclair, Cara Buono as Karen Wheeler, Amybeth McNulty as Vickie, David Harbour as Jim Hopper, Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers, and Jamie Campbell Bower as Vecna/Henry Creel/One.
The final season added some new faces too, such as Linda Hamilton as Dr. Kay, Nell Fisher as Holly Wheeler, Jake Connelly as Derek Turnbow, and Alex Breaux as Lieutenant Robert Akers.
For more on what to watch, check out our guides to the best Netflix movies and the best sci-fi movies on Netflix.
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