Stranger Things

The Story

The first season begins with the disappearance of twelve-year-old Will Byers in Hawkins, Indiana in November 1983. His friends Mike Wheeler, Dustin Henderson, and Lucas Sinclair discover a girl with a shaved head and psychokinetic abilities who has escaped from Hawkins National Laboratory. She calls herself Eleven. The children learn that the lab has been conducting experiments on children with psychic potential, that Eleven accidentally opened a gate to a parallel dimension called the Upside Down, and that a creature called the Demogorgon has been taking people through it. The series draws heavily on the aesthetic and feel of 1980s Steven Spielberg films, Stephen King novels, and John Carpenter horror, wearing its influences openly and sincerely.

Stranger Things Seasons

Season 1 (2016)

The debut season established the characters and world. The ensemble cast including Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers, David Harbour as Chief Jim Hopper, and the four children became immediately beloved. The season won multiple Emmy nominations and drew comparisons to E.T., Stand By Me, and Poltergeist. The mystery of the Upside Down and the fate of Will Byers gave the season tight narrative focus.

Season 2 (2017)

A year later, Will is back but not fully recovered. A new threat called the Mind Flayer reaches through the Upside Down. New characters including Max Mayfield and Billy Hargrove are introduced. The season expanded the scope and added new characters who became fan favorites. Eleven’s journey to find her origins and the episode dedicated to her backstory were divisive among viewers.

Season 3 (2019)

Set in the summer of 1985 around the opening of Starcourt Mall in Hawkins. The Russian subplot and the Mind Flayer’s return. The season finale was the most watched episode of the series to that point, with 40.7 million households watching within four days. Hopper’s apparent death at the end of the season was a genuine shock.

Season 4 (2022)

The longest and most ambitious season, released in two parts. Introduced Vecna, revealed to be One, the original test subject at Hawkins Lab and the being who created the Upside Down’s hive mind. The most critically acclaimed season since the first. Running at a combined runtime of over thirteen hours, it was essentially a feature film split into episodes. Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill became a global hit again after its use in a key scene.

Season 5

The fifth and final season released at the end of 2025. Linda Hamilton joined the cast in the government’s war against El. The truth about the upside down gets revealed. The gang go head to head with Vecna only for the military to catch them after. What happens next is easily the most controversial ending that’s happened in a while, with the show letting the viewer draw their own conclusion as to what happened.

Stranger Things Beyond the Show

Stranger Things has expanded into a stage musical, Stranger Things: The First Shadow, which premiered in London’s West End in December 2023 and serves as a prequel to the series. A showing of the play was filmed in February 2026 and will be coming to Netflix at some point. A video game, Stranger Things 3: The Game, adapted the third season. Stranger Things characters including Eleven and the Demogorgon have appeared in Dead by Daylight as multiple licensed chapters, introducing the franchise to a different gaming audience. A standalone game, Stranger Things: The Game, was released as a free mobile title.

Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 is a cartoon that takes place between the seasons 2 and 3. It features the characters dealing with Hawkins and new mysteries around the town. The show is not considered canon based discrepancies between the shows.

Dead by Daylight is a asymmetric multiplayer survival horror game developed and published by Behaviour Interactive. Initially Starbreeze Studios was the publisher of the game,…