Spoiler Warning: Major spoilers from the previous season of Stranger Things are featured throughout this article, so please proceed at your own risk.
It feels weird typing this. Stranger Things Season 5 is only a few weeks away, and the entire saga in Hawkins, Indiana, will wrap up before the end of the 2025 TV schedule. In a matter of weeks, Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, Eleven, and the rest of those characters we’ve come to know and love over the past decade will finish their stories, and one of Netflix’s most popular series of all time will be nothing but a distant memory.
But before that happens and we say all our goodbyes, there are a few things we need to go over regarding the 2025 Netflix show. That said, let’s break down everything we know about Stranger Things Season 5, including its release dates (there are three), the cast, and what we can expect…
What Is The The Stranger Things Season 5 Premiere Date?
It’s official – we finally have a release schedule for Stranger Things Season 5. Though it feels strange not having these episodes drop in October to make the most of the spooky season, getting to go back to Hawkins before the end of the year is a good feeling. Here is how it’s going to go down, according to Netflix Tudum:
- November 26th: The first four episodes.
- December 25th: The next three episodes.
- December 31st: The finale.
I know, I know – I’m sure many of us are tired of this type of release model (especially after Netflix said it wouldn’t change from a binge setup all those years ago), but hey, it’s the last time we’re ever going to get new episodes of the show, and this can make us even more excited for the holidays.
Check Out The Teaser Trailer For Stranger Things Season 5
This is NOT a drill, nerds. The teaser trailer for Stranger Things Season 5 dropped in July 2025, ending the long wait that had been going on since summer 2022, and we are so here for it. It features all the characters that we know and love in one last epic fight against Vecna – and features some new characters as well. Check the first teaser out in all its glory above.
The Stranger Things Season 5 Cast
Though we won’t be seeing Eddie Munson return to lead the Hellfire Club after his big sacrifice during the Stranger Things Season 4 finale, the rest of the Hawkins All-Stars will be back to lead the cast once again. Here’s a bulleted list of everyone Netflix has confirmed will be coming back this season.
- Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers)
- David Harbour (Jim Hopper)
- Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven)
- Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler)
- Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin Henderson)
- Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas Sinclair)
- Noah Schnapp (Will Byers)
- Sadie Sink (Max Mayfield)
- Natalia Dyer (Nancy Wheeler)
- Charlie Heaton (Jonathan Byers)
- Joe Keery (Steve Harrington)
- Maya Hawke (Robin Buckley)
- Priah Ferguson (Erica Sinclair)
- Brett Gelman (Murray)
- Jamie Campbell Bower (Vecna)
- Cara Buono (Karen Wheeler)
- Amybeth McNulty (Vickie)
- Nell Fisher (Holly Wheeler)
- Jake Connelly (Derek Turnbow)
- Alex Breaux (Lt. Akers)
We also know from Netflix that new cast member, Linda Hamilton, will play Dr. Kay. Who that is in the grand scheme of the show, I’m not sure, but we’ll find out soon enough.
What Stranger Things Season 5 Will Be About
Praise Vecna (but not seriously, though), because we FINALLY have more details about the Stranger Things Season 5 story, thanks to that Tudum article above. Here is what the fifth and final season of the popular series will be about.
When “the fall of 1987” happens, there are rifts that open in Hawkins, and the characters we all know and love are united to try to find and kill Vecna, but he vanishes without a trace. The military places Hawkins in quarantine and continues to hunt down Eleven, causing her to go back into hiding. With the anniversary of Will’s disappearance looms closer, a certain darkness returns and a battle is brewing, one that is going to require everyone to stand together in an epic fight.
So, now I’m just even more excited and need November to come right now. With this, we also know that they’re going to dive deeper into the Upside Down (thanks to another Tudum article in July 2025), and even more lore will be exposed as we close out this epic story. It’s so close!
Season 5 Will Only Take Place In Hawkins
Don’t expect to go anywhere new this time around. It’s been reported that Season 5 will only take place in Hawkins, as reported by Matt Duffer in an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused Podcast in July 2022, where he confirmed the plan was for Season 5 be set back where we’re familiar:
That’s what we anticipate and hope to do, which is to just to keep it contained in Hawkins. It’s going to feel a lot larger in scale than Season 1. We want to go back to a lot of things we did in Season 1 and a lot of the original groupings and pairings we had in Season 1.
With the whole “government has Hawkins in quarantine” aspect of the upcoming season’s story, it makes sense for the story to wrap up in the once-quiet town where it all started. Considering all the characters are going to be in the same place at the same time for what seems like years at this point, it’s going to be fun to see them all side-by-side one final time.
We Know The Episode Titles For Season 5
One way fans have been having fun ahead of each season of Stranger Things, going back to the beginning, is by diving into the hidden meanings of the episode titles. Well, get the brain trust together because Netflix has disclosed all eight chapters for the final season. During Stranger Things Day, the streaming giant revealed the following titles:
- The Crawl
- The Vanishing of [Redacted]
- The Turnbow Trap
- Sorcerer
- Shock Jock
- Escape From Camazotz
- The Bridge
- The Rightside Up
Um, I’m sorry, who is vanishing? Is “Sorcerer” about Will because he was always the sorcerer in the D&D group? These are just some of the questions we hope get answered when the show returns in November.
Stranger Things Season 5 Episodes Won’t Be As Long As Season 4
Although each episode featured in Stranger Things Season 4 was over an hour long (and the finale clocked in at a little under two-and-a-half hours), it doesn't sound like we should expect to see too many chapters running that long when the show’s fifth season premieres in the future. During a July 2022 appearance on the Happy Sad Confused Podcast , co-creator Matt Duffer explained that the reason the Season 4 episodes were so long was because there was so much character set-up required, a level of exposition that really won’t be all that necessary in Season 5.
Get Caught Up With Netflix’s Official Stranger Things Recaps
No judging here, but there’s a good chance a lot of us haven’t gone back to watch the early seasons of Stranger Things and will probably need a good refresher before Thanksgiving rolls around. Don’t fret, as Netflix Tudum has started to roll out full-season recaps going back to the beginning of the series in 2016. It should be noted that, at the time of this writing, recaps are only available for the first two season. More are on the way…
- Read Netflix Tudum’s Stranger Things Season 1 Recap
- Read Netflix Tudum’s Stranger Things Season 2 Recap
As you can tell by now, these highly in-depth breakdowns of the show’s early seasons are full of details that will certainly provide a great deal of context for the final eight episodes of one of the biggest Netflix shows of all time.
Ugh, this all makes me so excited but also a little sad. There are so many great shows to binge on Netflix, but I know I’m going to keep thinking about Stranger Things Season 5 until it comes out.
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