When will Stranger Things series 5 be released? Everything you need to know

Virgin Radio

30 Jul 2023, 10:01

The award-winning sci-fi horror drama will be returning next year for the fifth and final time.

The fourth season of Stranger Things became the most-watched Netflix series of all time after it was streamed for 1.352 billion hours within its first 28 days of release.

But will the fifth series take the top spot when it is released?

Here is everything we know about season five so far.

When will Stranger Things series five come out?

An official start date has not yet been announced, but American actor David Habour, who plays Jim Hopper, believes that series five will be released in “mid-2024”.

Writers Matt and Ross Duffer (also known as the Duffer Brothers) have shared that the season will be made up of eight episodes and the first will be called Chapter 1: The Crawl. 

What happened in season four?

In the season four finale, Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), a humanoid monster with powerful protruding vines sticking out of his body, tried to kill Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) in front of her friend, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown).

Mayfield briefly died but Eleven managed to bring her back to life by reflecting on how much their friendship means to her and using her ability to move things with her mind.

Mayfield’s other friends Robin Buckey (Maya Hawke), Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer), and Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) also tried to save her by travelling to the Upside Down, a stormy alternate dimension full of bloodthirsty creatures.

What will happen in the fifth series?

In regards to where season five will pick up from, Ross Duffer told TVLine: “I’m sure we will do a time jump, which makes sense given how quickly our lead actors are growing up. 

"Ideally, we’d have shot [series four and five] back to back, but there was just no feasible way to do that.”

Recently, the Duffer Brothers have been dropping clues on Twitter as to what fans can expect from the final series. 

One tweet stated: “Season 5 is like if season 1 and 4 had a baby. And then that baby was injected with steroids.”

Will this be the final series?

Unfortunately, the Duffer Brothers have confirmed that this will be the last series of Stranger Things.

The duo announced this in a virtual letter to their fans in February 2022, a few months before season four was released.

They explained: “Seven years ago, we planned out the complete story arc for Stranger Things. 

“At the time, we predicted the story would last four to five seasons. 

“It proved too large to tell in four, but – as you’ll soon see for yourselves – we are now hurtling toward our finale.”

In an interview with The Wrap in 2022, Ross Duffer also revealed: “We do have an outline for season 5 and we pitched it to Netflix and they really responded well to it.

“I mean, it was hard. It’s the end of the story,” he added. “I saw executives crying who I’ve never seen cry before and it was wild.”

Will there be a Stranger Things spin-off series?

The Duffer Brothers have suggested that they will create a spin-off series in the future.

In 2022, they said: “There are still many more exciting stories to tell within the world of Stranger Things; new mysteries, new adventures, new unexpected heroes.”

A Stranger Things stage play is also coming to London’s Pheonix Theatre later this year.

Stranger Things: The First Shadow will be directed by Stephen Daldry, who is best known for award-winning films such as Billy Elliot (2000) and The Reader (2008).

Stranger Things is available to stream on Netflix.