Overview
Stranger Things is wrapping up with its fifth season, and with one final battle against Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower, Emmanuelle) in a Hawkins where the Upside Down is no longer just an otherworldly realm. The mood, then, as captured in the just-dropped official teaser trailer for the show's last run: "wherever this blood leads, I need you to fight one last time".
A reverberating metal tune (Deep Purple's 'Child in Time'), explosions, a town under military quarantine, a hunt for Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown, The Electric State), Terminator franchise icon Linda Hamilton, tears, hearty embraces, huge stands: this sneak peek at Stranger Things season five has them all. As the trailer demonstrates, it also possesses a sense of occasion. Audiences should already be feeling it, given that this is goodbye to the series, but the show's characters clearly are as well.
Yes, Netflix is going big on finales of late, with Squid Game coming to a conclusion in June, too. With Stranger Things, Down Under viewers will be tuning in not once, not twice, but three times for this farewell trip to Indiana — starting in November 2025, then checking in again in December this year, then finally on the first day of 2026. On Thursday, November 27 in Australia and New Zealand, the first four-episode volume of season five will drop. Then, come Friday, December 26, you can mark Boxing Day with the second three-chapter volume. Finally, Thursday, January 1, 2026 will kick off with the last Stranger Things episode ever.
Back in June, Netflix also dropped a clip teasing the show's swansong — one filled with looks backwards at the tale that Stranger Things has told so far, which means peering at how young the cast was when the show premiered in 2016, as well as glimpses forward. Accordingly, from what's in store, fans already know that comas, bedside vigils, exploring via torchlight, shaking floors and a key piece of advice — "run" — all feature.
Season five makes finding and killing Vecna its main aim, all Eleven has been forced into hiding. The year: 1987. The time: autumn. That's a jump forward from the fourth season's spring 1986 timing. And one way or another, the residents of Hawkins that viewers know and love will have their final experience with the eeriness that's been plaguing their town for years. That's the promise that bidding adieu to Stranger Things, of course, even if the hit Netflix show's end won't be it for the franchise's broader universe.
If it feels like there's been a lengthy wait for more — even with the series no stranger to long delays between seasons — that's because there has been. When November rolls around, it will have been almost three-and-a-half years since season four, a gap extended due to 2023's Hollywood strikes. Before that, just under three years elapsed between seasons three and four, and just under two between the second and third seasons. The 13-month gap between seasons one and two seems positively short, then.
Late in 2024, Netflix revealed the titles of Stranger Things' eight season-five episodes. If you feel like obsessing over the monikers for clues, you've had eight hints for a while, then. The season will kick off with 'The Crawl', then deliver 'The Vanishing of ...', 'The Turnbow Trap' and 'Sorcerer'. Next comes 'Shock Jock', 'Escape From Camazotz' and 'The Bridge', before it all ends with the enticingly named 'The Rightside Up'.
Alongside Brown and Bower, season five brings back all of the other usual faces, too — so Winona Ryder (Beetlejuice Beetlejuice), David Harbour (Thunderbolts*), Finn Wolfhard (Saturday Night), Gaten Matarazzo (Please Don't Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain), Caleb McLaughlin (The Deliverance), Noah Schnapp (The Tutor), Sadie Sink (O'Dessa), Natalia Dyer (All Fun and Games), Charlie Heaton (The Souvenir: Part II), Joe Keery (Fargo), Maya Hawke (Inside Out 2), Priah Ferguson (The Curse of Bridge Hollow), Brett Gelman (Lady in the Lake) and Cara Buono (Things Like This).
As for more Stranger Things-related antics after season five, when creators Matt and Ross Duffer revealed that their sci-fi show was working towards its endgame back in 2022, they also said that they had more stories to tell in this fictional realm. Instantly, we all knew what that meant. Netflix doesn't like letting go of its hits easily, after all, so the quest to find a way to keep wandering through this franchise was about as surprising as Jim Hopper's (Harbour) usual gruff mood.
Check out the teaser trailer for Stranger Things season five below:
Stranger Things season five will arrive in three parts, streaming in Australia and New Zealand on Thursday, November 27, 2025; then on Friday, December 26,2025; and finally on Thursday, January 1, 2026. You can watch the first four seasons now via Netflix — and read our review of season four.
Images: courtesy of Netflix © 2025.