Stranger Things Season 5 Ratings Set Netflix Records Despite Fan Backlash

The more than three-year wait for Stranger Things Season 5 has been agonizing for fans. Delays in the production have forced Netflix’s most popular TV show of all time to keep the anticipation going, and the streamer has only made things worse by splitting up the final batch of episodes across three different release dates. There is good news for fans, though it can perhaps be considered bad news, and that is that the wait is almost over. Tomorrow night will see the premiere of the last episode of Stranger Things Season 5, the series finale for the Netflix hit.

Despite the outcry and criticisms being levied at the final episodes of Stranger Things, reality has proven that the show is still a cultural juggernaut. Not only can this be seen in how the show has dominated the conversations on social media and sparked plenty of memes (and notices of major errors), but the official ratings for the episodes make it clear. Netflix has rolled out more data about the viewership for Stranger Things Season 5, which has already set a few records for the streaming service and is poised to break a major one this time next week after the series finale.

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Netflix has released the viewership data for the week of December 22 to December 28, a range that includes the Christmas Day debut of Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2. Though specifics are not clear about the day itself, Netflix has confirmed that Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2 was the most-watched program on Christmas Day and noted that Christmas Day 2025 was their biggest viewership day for the holiday in the history of the service, boosted not only by Stranger Things but multiple NFL games.

The data for Stranger Things Season 5 paints a clear picture of how much the show has been watched, though. With 34.5 million views and 284.8 million hours viewed, these stats for the second batch of episodes push the series to new heights. By our math, adding together this week’s data with the preceding four weeks, Stranger Things Season 5 has amassed over 137 million views and 773 million hours viewed total. All of this is enough to put the series on the official All-Time Top 10 for Netflix TV shows. At this point, it would be enough to put it at the #4 position, just below Stranger Things Season 4.

This time next week, when the Stranger Things Season 5 finale (and series finale) has been released, the viewership data for the series will give us a clear picture of the entire season’s popularity. As of this writing, the series seems primed to push the limited series Fool Me Once out of the All-Time Top 10 entirely and squeeze past Stranger Things Season 4 and even Adolescence to become the #2 most-watched English-language TV season on Netflix.

It’s certainly possible that by the end of Netflix’s90-day window that Stranger Things Season 5, could be their most-watched show ever, but it has two major hurdles to clear. The first of these is Wednesday Season 1, which is the most-watched English-language season on Netflix with over 252 million “views” (calculated by Netflix by dividing the total time spent watching a series by its run time). Then there’s the final boss, so to speak, Squid Game Season 1, which has over 265 million views. It will be tough for Stranger Things Season 5 to pass either of these, even as fans watch the entire season when all the episodes are released. 137 million views for the series thus far paints a grim picture for the potential of the series to even hit 200 million views, let alone 250 million.

There’s also the matter that the Stranger Things series finale is also being shown in movie theaters across the country at the same time that it premieres on Netflix. It’s unclear how Netflix will tabulate the viewership of the last episode in the theaters alongside the people watching it in the theater, but it does give them a bit of an out when it comes to the final numbers. In the end, Stranger Things Season 5 has already set the record for biggest premiere week ever for an English-language show (bringing in over 59.6 million views in the first five days) and anchored the biggest Christmas Day ever for Netflix. There’s one episode left, and the record book is starting to strain with its potential.