The portal to the Upside Down is closing up for good. On Friday, Netflix announced that production on the fifth and final season of Stranger Things has wrapped. Season 5 of the Emmy-winning sci-fi adventure series is set to premiere in 2025.
Along with the announcement, the streaming service shared some behind-the-scenes photos featuring the cast and creative team, including creators the Duffer Brothers, executive producer/director Shawn Levy, and director Frank Darabont, the iconic filmmaker (The Shawshank Redemption, The Walking Dead) who came out of retirement to helm two episodes, marking his first time behind the camera in over a decade.
Season 5 will bring the story of Hawkins, Ind. to a close, as the kids head into the final showdown with the supernatural terror that haunts their town. The Season 5 cast includes Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, Sadie Sink, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery, Maya Hawke, Priah Ferguson, Brett Gelman, Cara Buono, Amybeth McNulty, Jamie Campbell Bower, and Linda Hamilton.
Millie Bobby Brown, the show’s biggest breakout star, has said she’s ready for the show to be over. “When you’re ready, you’re like, ‘All right, let’s do this. Let’s tackle this last senior year. Let’s get out of here,’” Brown told Glamour last year. “Stranger Things takes up a lot of time to film and it’s preventing me from creating stories that I’m passionate about. So I’m ready to say, ‘Thank you, and goodbye.’”
Stranger Things is one of Netflix’s biggest shows, and has become a global phenomenon since it premiered in 2016, capable of returning a nearly 40-year-old song to the pop charts, which is what happened when Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” was featured in Season 4 in 2022. The series has earned 57 Emmy nominations over the course of its run, including Outstanding Drama Series nods for all four seasons, with 12 wins. The franchise has expanded to include a stage musical, Stranger Things: The First Shadow, which will make its Broadway debut in 2025, and an as-yet-untitled animated spinoff, which is currently in the works.
