Turn those frowns Upside Down: Stranger Things 5 will release in 2025. After the first teaser for the fifth and final season of Stranger Things announced that the Netflix series would be returning this year following a three-year wait between seasons, creators the Duffer brothers have confirmed that new episodes are coming this year — and they’re ahead of schedule. Matt and Ross Duffer revealed the season 5 update at SCAD TVfest, where the duo received the Variety Showrunners Award.
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“We’re focused on visual effects sequences right now, which started back in January,” Ross Duffer told the audience (via Variety). “It’s going well. We’re actually ahead of schedule, which is rare for us.”
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As for whether the eight-episode season will release all at once (like seasons 1-3) or in parts — season 4 was split into two volumes, a seven-episode volume one and a two-episode, feature-length volume two — Matt Duffer said, “We will see. I will say that it is coming this year. We’re definitely on target.”
While promoting their Upside Down Pictures slate at the recent Next on Netflix event, which includes wedding-themed horror series Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen and the Stranger Things spiritual successor The Boroughs, the Duffers described the final season as “eight blockbuster movies.” (Season 4 volume two episodes “Chapter Eight: Papa” and “Chapter Nine: The Piggyback” had a combined run time of nearly four hours.)
“Ross and I do love blockbuster films, we do love big special effects sequences, but at the end of the day, it’s about the character work,” Matt Duffer added. “What I do love about television, even though we were film guys growing up, that we’re able to do these huge cinematic special effects, but then we also have a lot of time to spend with the characters… the goal is you’re so invested in the story, and that’s what I found good TV does really well.”
In 2022, the Duffers teased that Stranger Things‘ final season would answer “the last remaining questions” about the mythology of the Upside Down, saying during Netflix Geeked Week, “We’ve punted a couple of those to have some big reveals in season 5. And that’s really going to affect what season 5 is about.”
Along with returning cast members Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven), Finn Wolfhard (Mike), Noah Schnapp (Will), Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin), Natalia Dyer (Nancy), Charlie Heaton (Jonathan), Joe Keery (Steve), Sadie Sink (Max), Maya Hawke (Robin), Priah Ferguson (Erica), Jamie Campbell Bower (Vecna), and Winona Ryder (Joyce) and David Harbour (Hopper), new cast members include Nell Fisher (Evil Dead Rise), Jake Connelly (Between the Silence), Alex Breaux (American Primeval), and Linda Hamilton (the Terminator movies) in undisclosed roles.
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