Photo: Courtesy of Netflix

When she first started shooting Stranger Things, Millie Bobby Brown was 10 years old playing Eleven. The 20-year-old actress is now married (into the House of Bon Jovi, no less), and the fifth and final season of the Netflix show still hasn’t dropped. The long wait isn’t because the Duffer brothers couldn’t figure out how to wrap up all the loose ends — in fact, the series creators told Variety in 2022 that fans shouldn’t expect to wait another three years since they already had an initial outline for the last installment of the show. But it was one of many projects across the industry that faced unexpected delays due to the double Hollywood strikes in 2023. Filming finally started on January 8, 2024.

Finn Wolfhard hinted to Us Weekly that season five is “huge” and contains “a lot of action sequences,” and other cast members have similarly talked up the scale of what we can expect. Here’s everything we know, including which familiar and new faces are in the cast, what details we’ve gotten about the “full circle” plot, and whether there’s a release date yet.

Is there a trailer?

Not yet. But on July 15, Netflix celebrated Stranger Things 5 hitting the halfway point of filming by giving us a glimpse of the cast in costume on set in a behind-the-scenes video. We’re assured that the wait will be “100%” worth it and that season five feels even bigger than season four. It’s not like they could say it’ll be a letdown that feels smaller, but we’ll take it.

Who’s coming back?

The majority of the cast. If you need proof, check the black-and-white photo Netflix shared to mark the start of production in January. Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Sadie Sink, Maya Hawke, Jamie Campbell Bower, David Harbour, Winona Ryder, Joe Keery, Amybeth McNulty, Charlie Heaton, Brett Gelman, Natalia Dyer, and Priah Ferguson are all pictured.

Joseph Quinn is notably not in the shot, but he seemingly hasn’t ruled out the possibility of returning. “Nothing’s impossible,” he told The Hollwyood Reporter when asked in June 2024 about popping up in season five. “I don’t know,” he added, pointing out that he might have a “sly smile” on his face.

Photo: Atsushi Nishijima/Netflix

Are there any newcomers in the cast?

Four of ‘em so far, yup. Netflix announced in 2023 that Linda Hamilton would be the latest ‘80s icon to star in the ‘80s-set show. In July 2024, Netflix confirmed that Nell Fisher, Jake Connelly, and Alex Breaux are also playing new characters.

What have the Duffer brothers said about the plot?

Matt Duffer told The Guardian in 2023 that season five will be like season one “on steroids.” As you might recall, by the end of season four, Vecna got the Upside Down to start bleeding into Hawkins. With the gang all back in town, Matt said that we can expect to see Eleven and the boys interacting more like they did when we first met them. Ross Duffer also suggested to Collider in 2022 that the final installment will be “coming full circle back to season one.” He added that he expects that to happen with several character arcs, including Will, whom Matt identified as “a big part and focus” of the final season. “We’re starting to see his coming of age, really,” Matt explained. “Which has been challenging for a number of reasons, some of which are supernatural. But you’re starting to see him come into his own.”

Meanwhile, if you’ve still got burning questions about the Upside Down, you’re in luck. The Duffers previously told Tudum that they wrote 25 pages about the mysterious dimension’s mythology during season one. The duo teased during Geeked Week in 2022 that questions answered by that lore document will translate to “big reveals” that are “really going to affect what season five is about.” (So perhaps it’s not surprising that Matt previously confirmed to Collider in 2022 that this season will primarily take place in Hawkins and the Upside Down.)

And what has the cast said?

It’s not a full press tour yet, but we’ve been getting little details in interviews throughout the year. Finn Wolfhard told Us Weekly on November 1 that season five will include “a lot of action sequences.” According to Wolfhard, the season will be “intimate,” but also “huge” in scale — a contrast he’s also teased in other interviews. He also echoed the Duffers’s full-circle comments by telling The Hollywood Reporter in March that the show is returning to “a lot of the dynamics of season one,” including some “leader Mike” moments.

During a Happy Sad Confused podcast live special in October, David Harbour said that as someone who can be “very critical” of Stranger Things, he thinks the season five finale is the best episode of the entire series. He added that cast members started crying halfway through the table read for it. “Then about the last 20 minutes, it was just uncontrollably crying, waves of different people. Noah Schnapp being my favorite,” he said.

In June, Jamie Campbell Bower reflected on iHeart’s I’ve Never Said This Before podcast that while he found season four’s plot easy to follow, he struggled to keep up with what was happening this time. “If you thought last season was nuts, this season is just out of control, wild, like, it’s bonkers. It really, really is,” he said, per The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s bigger. It’s just completely insane. It’s completely insane.”

Meanwhile, Joe Keery said in February on The Movie Dweeb podcast that “good, good things” will happen for Steve.

What are the episode titles?

Netflix teased the eight episode titles on November 6: “The Crawl,” “The Vanishing of …”— a reference to the series-premiere episode, “The Vanishing of Will Byers” — “The Turnbow Trap,” “Sorcerer,” “Shock Jock,” “Escape From Camazotz,” “The Bridge,” and the finale, “The Rightside Up.”

As for what the episodes will be like? “Long.” Maya Hawke described them to Podcrushed in July as “basically, eight movies.” If that wasn’t clear enough, she added, “The episodes are very long.” That seems to align with Matt Duffer’s July 2022 appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, when he said he expected the season-five finale to have a runtime of at least two hours, per The Wrap.

For now, Stranger Things has shared the first couple lines of the script for the first episode.

Is there a release date?

Well … sorta kinda. When they gave us the episode titles, Netflix also confirmed that the show would be coming back sometime in 2025. That’s pretty vague, but we’d expect the show in the first half of the year so it can compete in the next Emmys cycle. The previous season, you may or may not recall, aired in summer 2022. As soon as we hear any official confirmation, we’ll come running up the hill to update this post.