Courtesy of Netflix Stranger Thingsis running up that hill to its final season. The upcoming fifth season of the Netflix original will be its last, as creators Matt and Ross Duffer previously confirmed in February 2022, in a letter to the show's fans. "Seven years ago, we planned out the complete story arc forStranger Things. At the time, we predicted the story would last four to five seasons,"they wroteat the time. "It proved too large to tell in four, but – as you'll soon see for yourselves – we are now hurling toward our finale." Speaking toVarietyabout the series coming to an end,Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike Wheeler, compared it to saying goodbye to his childhood. "Everyone had a long journey andshared it together," he toldVarietyin January 2025. "My whole childhood was there. It was sort of theToy Story 3moment of leaving your toys behind. It was really special." Though we still have a way to go before the final season premieres, the cast and creators have already teased what's in store, including the episode titles. Here's everything we know aboutStranger Thingsseason 5. In January 2024, Netflix announced that the show hadbegun production for the final season, sharinga cast photo, confirming who will come back. Returning main cast members includeWinona Ryder,David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard,Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Noah Schnapp, Sadie Sink, Joe Keery and Maya Hawke. The cast photo also included Brett Gelman, Priah Ferguson, Cara Buono, Amybeth McNulty and Jamie Campbell Bower, who joined the cast in season 4 asthe show's villain, Vecna. Hawke told PEOPLE in June 2024 that filming the final season had been "heartbreaking" for her, even though she was a relatively recent addition to the cast. "I mean, it's the end of a really long journey. Longer for some of my castmates, even, than me. It's really sentimental," she said, adding, "We shoot for a long time, so it's reinvigorating [to bring] the joy and finding it everyday and making it new. It's a really fun thing to do." In June 2023, Netflix announced thatLinda Hamilton will join the castofStranger Thingsfor the fifth and final season. Though theTerminatorstar is joining the ranks, back in August 2022, theDuffer Brothersrevealed they were trying their bestnot to add any new charactersinto the new season in order to be mindful about wrapping up the stories for the current players. "We're doing our best to resist [adding new characters] for Season 5," Matt told Indiewire. "We're trying not to do that so we can focus on the OG characters, I guess." His twin Ross added, "We've got a great cast of characters here, and actors, and any moment we're spending with a new character, we're taking time away from one of the other actors." Though Netflix hasn't revealed the official plotline for season 5 yet, it will likely follow the Hawkins kids as they try to defeat Vecna once and for all now that the Upside Down has invaded their town. The Duffer brothers have teased their endgame for the show in previous interviews, and it sounds emotional. In a conversation withThe Wrap, Ross revealed that some Netflix executives actually teared up when they announced their plans for season 5. "We do have an outline for Season 5 and we pitched it to Netflix and they really responded well to it," he said. "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." Harbour previously toldVarietythathe knows how the series endsand "it's quite moving and quite beautiful." Speaking onTodayin January 2023, Sink teased that while she doesn't know much about the upcoming season,she knew it would be "emotional." She added, "Spoiler-free, just with the way my character ended in season 4, I have no idea what is going to happen. But I'll be there." In August 2024, Ferguson told PEOPLE that while she couldn't "say much" about what fans can expect in the upcoming episodes, filming was "going great." "I believe everybody is fascinated about the finale and about closing the last season in such an epic way," she said. Harbour described the series finale as the "best episode they've ever done" while appearing on theHappy Sad Confusedpodcast in October 2024. "The end of this episode when we were reading it — just us reading it — about halfway through, people started crying," he said. "Then about the last 20 minutes, it was just uncontrollably crying, waves of different people." In January 2025, Matt said in a press release that the upcoming season will be "intense from beginning to end," but Ross added that it's "also going to feel familiar." "This season is the biggest it's ever been in scale, but everyone's back together in Hawkins, interacting the same way they were in Season 1," he said. The show's creators previously announced thatseason 5 will feature a time jumpto more accurately portraytheir young starswho have grown up before viewers' eyes during the show's run. "Ideally, we'd have shot [seasons 4 and 5] back to back, but there was just no feasible way to do that," Ross toldTVLine. "So these are all discussions we're going to have with our writers when we start the room up." In November 2024, Netflix'sfirst season 5 teaserrevealed that the show will be set in the fall of 1987 — a less significant time jump than fans were expecting considering season 4 was set in the spring of 1986. In the Duffer brothers' interview with TheWrap, they teased that season 5 won't be as lengthy as season 4, which clocks in atabout 13 hours long. "I don't think it'll be as long," Matt said. "The final few is going to be more like aReturn of the Jediin that ... they're going from the beginning. There's going to be less ramp up. And I think people will understand what I'm talking about when they see the end of this season. It's like, we're just going." Matt's initial predictions ended up being true. In November 2024,Tudumannounced that season 5 will consist of eight episodes, with the finale titled "The Rightside Up." Ateaserreleased in November 2024 confirmed theepisode titlesfor season 5. They are: 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." On Aug. 2, 2022, theStranger Thingswriters' room X account teased that they were getting started on the script for season 5 asthey posted "Day 1" alongside a photoof a whiteboard with the text "Stranger Things 5." Though filming was originally scheduled tobegin in the summer of 2023, it waspostponed due to the writer's strike. In January 2024, Netflix announced that production had officially begun as they shared a black-and-white photo of the entire cast. Nearly a year later, filming wrapped in December 2024, and multiple members of the cast shared their thoughts on social media. Alongside photos of the cast through the years, Wolfhard wrote in anInstagrampost, "We justwrappedStranger ThingsSeason 5. I'm still in shock. We shot it for a year and I'll miss all of my friends and our characters terribly." Schnapp shared anInstagrampost with a lengthy caption of his own, writing, "Growing up I always felt like an outcast, unsure of where I fit in. Navigating life in the spotlight while carrying this feeling, through every awkward phase and embarrassing moment exposed for the world to see, has definitely been an unusual experience. But I've been honored to share it with my incredible co-stars, who understand it in a way that no one else can." In June 2023, Netflix confirmed that10 Cloverfield Lane'sDan Trachtenberg will direct an upcoming episodein the new season. The Shawshank Redeptiondirector Frank Darabont confirmed that he'd come out of retirement to work onStranger Things'final season as well. "What really dragged me out of retirement was that my wife and I really love this show," he said in a September 2024 interview withThe Daily Beast. "Our content now is so filled with horrible people doing horrible things for greedy reasons butStranger Thingshas so much heart. That positivity is something I really responded to." Though Netflix hasn't announced an exact release date for the upcoming season, the streaming service did confirm that season 5 is comingsometime in 2025. Since filming wasn't complete until the end of 2024, it seems likely that it will premiere in the second half of the year. While season 5 is the end ofStranger Things, it's not the end of the franchise. The horrors of Hawkins came alive on the stage withStranger Things: The First Shadow. The play debuted on London's West End in December, before transferringto Broadwayin spring 2025. In April 2023, Netflix announced plans for an animated series based on the hit drama had been greenlit. The still-untitled project will be produced byThe Duffer Brothersthrough Upside Down Pictures, alongside Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen on behalf of 21 Laps, and Eric Robles through Flying Bark Productions. The Duffer brothers previouslyteased a potential spinoff ideain 2022. "There's a version of it developing in parallel [to season 5], but they would never shoot it parallel,"Ross toldVariety. "I think actually we're going to start delving into that soon as we're winding down and finishing these visual effects, Matt and I are going to start getting into it." Matt added, "The reason we haven't done anything is just because you don't want to be doing it for the wrong reasons, and it was just like, 'Is this something I would want to make regardless of it being related toStranger Things or not?' And definitely. Even if we took theStranger Thingstitle off of it, I'm so, so excited about it. But it is not… It's going to be different than what anyone is expecting, including Netflix." Though they have kept tight-lipped about the plot of the spinoff,Stranger Thingsstar Wolfhard is already in on the secret after he correctly guessed what the new series would be. "Finn Wolfhard, he wasn't spitballing, he just went, 'I think this would be a cool spin-off,' " Ross recounted. "And we were like, 'How in the world..." Read the original article onPeople
