I’ve been waiting for years to see how Stranger Things ends, and I was counting on Netflix to reveal season 5’s release date during the Tudum event over the weekend.
The good news is that it finally happened. We got a teaser for Stranger Things 5 during the show, giving us the final season’s release dates.
You’ve read that right. Netflix will not make the entire fifth season available at once, so you can binge it in one day. After all, Netflix did the same thing with season 4, splitting that chapter into two parts. With season 5, Netflix is doing something else entirely.
Stranger Things 5 will have three parts, all scheduled around major holidays, so you can make the most of the new season, especially the finale, which is rumored to have a massive runtime.
Stranger Things 5 release dates
Netflix chose three Stranger Things season 5 release dates that match the big holidays at the end of the year: Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Eve. Here’s what you’re getting and when:
- Stranger Things 5 – Volume 1 – November 26: Episodes 1-4
- Stranger Things 5 – Volume 2 – December 25: Episodes 5-7
- Stranger Things 5 – The Finale – December 31: Episode 8
Each volume releases at 5:00 PM PST in the US, with the rest of the world getting it at the same time. That means Stranger Things 5 will hit the streaming service in the middle of the night in Europe, and I’m already debating whether to be awake for either volume.
I’m certainly excited to see how this story concludes, and Netflix is counting on that. That’s why they’re splitting season 5 into three parts. Three years in the making, the final season could have been released at once; I have no doubt about that. But what better way of keeping the Stranger Things conversation going than by turning the show into three volumes?
That will keep fans wondering what happens next and ensure Stranger Things is everything people talk about during the final months of 2025. After all, Netflix teased more than once that the final season will answer all our lingering questions about Hawkins, the Upside Down, Eleven, and the Stranger Things characters we’ve grown to love over the years.
“The last remaining questions that are answered in that [25-page document The Duffers sowed to Netflix years ago], we’ve punted a couple of those to have some big reveals in Season 5,” Ross Duffer teased in the past. “And that’s really going to affect what Season 5 is about.”
Synopsis, episode titles, and the finale
Netflix also shared the full synopsis for Stranger Things 5, as follows:
The fall of 1987. Hawkins is scarred by the opening of the Rifts, and our heroes are united by a single goal: find and kill Vecna. But he has vanished — his whereabouts and plans unknown. Complicating their mission, the government has placed the town under military quarantine and intensified its hunt for Eleven, forcing her back into hiding. 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.
Netflix also shared the titles of almost all eight episodes in season 5, with episode 2 getting only a partial title reveal, as it’s supposed to be a surprise:
- 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”
Also, remember how Netflix turned the final episodes of season 4 into movie-like experiences? The same is about to happen with Stranger Things 5. Netflix didn’t share runtimes during its Tudum event for the finale, but Ross Duffer said in the past that they’re likely to have a “two-and-a-half-hour episode” to deliver the proper ending the highly acclaimed series deserves.
We’ll have to wait a while to get the exact runtimes for each season 5 episode, but it won’t be long now.
