- calendar_today August 25, 2025
Stranger Things Season 5 Teases Devastating Losses
Netflix released an extended teaser trailer for Season 5 of Stranger Things on Thursday. The fifth and final season of the hit series premieres late this year.
Stranger Things has always thrived on big moments. Summoning epic creatures, transporting to fantastical worlds, and sending characters into interdimensional sci-fi horror brawls. The new teaser is all that. Within its 90-second runtime, it crams some of the scariest and most thrilling moments we9ve seen in the Upside Down thus far.
Action sequences featuring flamethrowers and an armed Linda Hamilton wearing body armor. A key moment where Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) punctures the Rift again, and the Upside Down pours out into Hawkins. Plus, a throwback for season 4 fans: a scene straight out of Jurassic Park featuring Lucas and others trying to avoid a pack of demo-dogs in a dark hallway.
The clip is jarring from the opening shot. We9re back in Hawkins for the first time in 11 months, but it9s a much darker, scarier version than we left in the Season 4 finale.
The ending of Season 4 hit with enormous force. Vecna ripped open the massive Rift that9s been keeping the Upside Down at bay, and the entire city of Hawkins flooded with its horrors. As the teaser makes clear, we are now in fall 1987. The time has jumped forward. This is also the third anniversary of Will Byers9 disappearance, which began the entire series in Season 1. It9s a chilling way to end the teaser.
Netflix has described the final season as eight feature-length episodes (effectively eight Stranger Things movies). These episodes build on the cliffhanger of Season 4 and the big Season 5 reveal: the Upside Down is now fully merged with Hawkins.
There9s still a reason to fight, though. Vecna is the new Big Bad of Season 5, and he must be stopped. Hawkins has become a permanent scar, the Rifts remain open, and Eleven is on the run as U.S. authorities have declared a military quarantine and stepped up efforts to capture her. Old and new faces are set to band together for a single mission: find and kill Vecna.
The Pressure Is On for Hawkins9 Favorite Heroes
The core group of Hawkins kids has all made it back. Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Steve (Nico Cowan), Joyce (Winona Ryder), Will (Noah Schnapp), Max (Sadie Sink), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) will be there to save Hawkins one last time. Fans have also been promised a large group reunion for the finale, and hopefully, the teaser is a sign that they all make it.
With this final season, we9ll also see the return of Amybeth McNulty as Vicki, Gabriella Pizzolo as Suzie (Dustin9s girlfriend), and Jamie Campbell Bower as Vecna, the central villain of Season 4.
New faces to the Stranger Things universe in Season 5 include Linda Hamilton as Dr. Kay, Nell Fisher as Holly Wheeler, Jake Connelly as Derek Turnbow, and Alex Breaux as Lt. Akers. The team-up aspect of the final battle makes Hamilton9s casting a lot of sense.
Teaser Trivia: Steven Spielberg and Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park is one of Steven Spielberg9s most iconic and successful films. So, seeing a shot from Season 5 that9s almost directly inspired by the Jurassic Park films will get the jaws of longtime Stranger Things fans dropping.
The sequence in the teaser is a shot-for-shot reenactment of the most famous scene in the 1993 Jurassic Park film. In that clip, the park9s lead dinosaur trainer takes two visitors into the kitchen to hide from an escaped velociraptor.
The Stranger Things scene is of Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) leading other characters into a kitchen to escape a pack of demodogs. The best way to describe this moment is to watch the clips back to back. (The teaser is on YouTube, but you9ll have to find your copy of Jurassic Park.)
The reference itself is a fun easter egg that no doubt threw Stranger Things fans onto the internet9s hardest hunt. If it9s a tip of the hat from the Duffer Brothers to Spielberg, Stranger Things producers who reportedly have direct creative input from Spielberg, there9s a big Jurassic Park / Stranger Things crossover tease going around Reddit right now. Stranger Things will have exhausted all other options by the end of Season 5, so why not?
The Many Ways Stranger Things Teaser Tugged on Heartstrings
Fans knew Eddie Munson died in the Season 4 finale, but the Stranger Things Season 5 teaser includes a moment that feels even more heartbreaking than the loss itself. When a gravestone reading 2 80 9cBurn in hell2 80 9d appears alongside his name and a dedication from the Kings of Audit, a wide range of emotions wash over the viewer. There9s the immediate grief Eddie9s death left on fans. Eddie was a standout character on Stranger Things, and no character may have been this loved since his death.
Second, Eddie was heroically killed to save the Hawkins kids in the Season 4 finale. Now that there9s nothing left to lose, Hawkins residents have turned his gravestone into a bullseye, physically mocking his last act and the final words he said on screen.
Fans know Eddie is a hero in the final Season 5 episodes. No matter how many people try to write him off as a villain, history will remember Eddie as a savior, as a member of the group that fought back against Vecna. Still, as the Stranger Things Season 5 teaser shows, that injustice will sting.
Season 5 of Stranger Things Will be Rolled Out Over Months
Netflix released the teaser for Stranger Things Season 5 as a trailer, but it did not include details about when the final season would air. Fans quickly guessed release dates thanks to a series of Easter eggs from the teaser, but Netflix later confirmed their suspicions.
Netflix also confirmed that the season would be spread across three distinct release dates, meaning fans won9t be able to binge-watch the season in one go like they have for the past four. Instead, fans can expect Stranger Things to come in three big waves of pop culture buzz:
- Volume 1 drops on November 26, 2025.
- Volume 2 will air on Christmas Day on December 25, 2025.
- The Season 5 finale drops on New Year9s Eve 2025, December 31.
While these release dates make for an awkward, piecemeal release, a trilogy format also means Stranger Things will be all over the pop culture landscape this holiday season. As audiences get further invested in what9s going on with Hawkins, new seasons, and their reactions will also keep Stranger Things’ buzz very much alive in 2025.
Stranger Things Season 5 Is Our Last Ride
Season 5 is the finale. It9s been a long time coming and, in many ways, it9s only the beginning of the end. Thanks to the teaser, fans now know what to expect and when they can expect it. When the final credits roll on New Year9s Eve of 2025, the Hawkins crew will have given it everything they9ve got to fight off the darkness of the Upside Down for one last time.
