Stranger Things | The Verge The Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts. 2026-03-19T15:44:47+00:00 https://www.theverge.com/rss/stranger-things/index.xml https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/verge-rss-large_80b47e.png?w=150&h=150&crop=1 Andrew Webster <![CDATA[The Stranger Things behind-the-scenes doc is a lot more boring than a secret episode]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=860692 2026-01-12T14:57:56-05:00 2026-01-12T15:00:00-05:00

It's a weird time in the Stranger Things community. Following a monthslong lead-up to a finale that was so big it screened in theaters, the show's superfans have been spending their time dissecting the fifth season in order to prove that a hidden ninth episode is coming that represents the true ending of Stranger Things. So far that hasn't happened - but that doesn't mean Netflix is done with the series. The streamer just released One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5, a two hour-long documentary about, well, the making of season 5. And while it's far removed from a secret episode and provides little in the way of new conspirac …

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]]> Joshua Rivera <![CDATA[I went to the Stranger Things finale in theaters and the strangest thing happened]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=853133 2026-01-06T12:00:00-05:00 2026-01-03T10:00:00-05:00

The parking lot was packed. That's the first Strange Thing.

A little background. Just about every mall is struggling now, but the Neshaminy Mall in Bensalem, Pennsylvania is more or less comatose. As Defector's Dan McQuade, a lifelong Pennsylvanian and mall fan, wrote in his fond remembrance of the shopping center, the once bustling complex is mostly a shuttered ghost town, with half of it set to be demolished. There are only two real reasons to go there: a well-stocked Barnes & Noble and the AMC movie theater.

And people do go there for the movie theater. It's one of only three theaters in the Philly area with an IMAX screen, making it a …

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]]> Andrew Webster <![CDATA[The end of Stranger Things: all the news from the Netflix show’s fifth and final season]]> https://www.theverge.com/?post_type=vm_stream&p=830031 2026-03-19T11:44:47-04:00 2025-11-26T14:00:00-05:00

A decade after it first premiered, Netflix’s most impactful show has come to an end. The fifth and final season of Stranger Things was split into a three-part event that spans multiple holidays: it premiered on November 26th, with a second batch of episodes on Christmas, followed by the final episode on December 31st. While there are spinoffs on the way, the end of Stranger Things marks a pivotal shift for Netflix, as the streaming service moves into a new era that’s less defined by singular blockbusters.

You can keep up with all of our coverage of Stranger Things 5 right here.

]]> Andrew Webster <![CDATA[Stranger Things 5’s first trailer promises an epic showdown]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=707540 2025-07-16T10:05:31-04:00 2025-07-16T10:05:31-04:00

It's been a long time coming, but we finally have a real look at the end of Stranger Things. Netflix just released the first teaser trailer for the show's fifth season, which will also be its last when it starts streaming later this year. As was alluded to in the finale of season 4, the new trailer - which, despite being called a teaser, clocks in at nearly three minutes long - is focused on the major showdown with Vecna that will presumably end the string of supernatural bad luck in Hawkins, Indiana for good.

Here's the official setup for the finale, according to Netflix:

The fall of 1987. Hawkins is scarred by the opening of the Rifts, …

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]]> Charles Pulliam-Moore <![CDATA[The Duffer Brothers are making yet another live-action Death Note adaptation for Netflix]]> https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/6/23197036/netflix-death-note-duffer-brothers-upside-down-studios 2022-07-06T15:02:00-04:00 2022-07-06T15:02:00-04:00
Ryuk the Shinigami eating an apple | Image: Nippon Television

Though Netflix already made a go at adapting writer Tsugumi Ohba and illustrator Takeshi Obata's Death Note back in 2017, the streamer's gearing up to give it another go with the help of the Duffer Brothers.

Fresh off the success of Stranger Things 4 Vol. 2, Netflix announced today that Matt and Ross Duffer have renewed their deal to develop multiple projects for the platform and formed Upside Down Pictures, a new production house named for the dimension at the center of their sci-fi opus. In a public statement about Upside Down Pictures, the Duffers shared that producer Hilary Leavitt (Orphan Black, Ozark) has been tapped to head the studi …

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]]> David Pierce <![CDATA[Stranger Things 4 just became the second Netflix show to hit 1 billion hours viewed]]> https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/5/23195675/stranger-things-4-popularity-netflix-billion-hours 2022-07-05T15:42:58-04:00 2022-07-05T15:42:58-04:00
A lot of people liked Stranger Things 4. | Courtesy of Netflix

Stranger Things 4, the most recent season of the hit show, just became the second Netflix show ever to surpass a billion hours viewed. Since the first installment of the season dropped on May 27th, viewers have spent a cumulative 1.15 billion hours watching the season's nine episodes, including 301 million hours just this past weekend. That makes Stranger Things 4 the second most-watched Netflix season ever, after Squid Game in 2021. It was in Netflix's Top 10 in 93 different countries this weekend, the company says. The show is so popular right now that it's boosting the older seasons, too: all four Stranger Things seasons were in Netflix's …

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]]> Charles Pulliam-Moore <![CDATA[Stranger Things 4 ends by trusting in the season’s best and worst instincts]]> https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/2/23192070/stranger-things-4-volume-2-review 2022-07-02T08:00:00-04:00 2022-07-02T08:00:00-04:00
Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven and Matthew Modine as Dr. Martin Brenner. | Netflix

Though Netflix hyped Stranger Things 4 Vol. 2 as being its own standalone season of the Duffer Brothers' nostalgic sci-fi opus, its two extra-long episodes are truly just the final chapters of Vol. 1's story about what's really been hunting Eleven and her friends. Stranger Things 4 Vol. 2 puts a period on this season's introduction of Vecna, and sets the stage for its psionic hero and villain to take on even larger roles in the series' future. As a season finale focused on emotional payoff, Vol. 2's manages to rise to the occasion and deliver. But it does so while also leaning into some of Stranger Things' worst instincts that have plagued t …

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]]> Charles Pulliam-Moore <![CDATA[Kate Bush loves that Stranger Things is introducing the youth to her music]]> https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/23/23180083/stranger-things-kate-bush-running-up-that-hill 2022-06-23T13:26:43-04:00 2022-06-23T13:26:43-04:00
Sadie Sink as Max Mayfield. | Netflix

Thanks to the popularity of Stranger Things' music-heavy fourth season and social media, Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" has climbed up to the very top of music charts around the world 37 years after the song initially released. A number of Bush's longtime (and generally older) fans have felt a type of way about younger people discovering her music for themselves by way of a sci-fi love letter to the '80s. But Bush - herself a longtime Stranger Things fan - sees the sudden resurgence of interest in "Running Up That Hill" as an exciting and touching testament to the power of art.

In a recent interview with BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, Bush …

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]]> Charles Pulliam-Moore <![CDATA[Everyone’s ready to die on that hill in Stranger Things 4 Volume 2’s first trailer]]> https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/21/23176770/stranger-things-season-4-volume-2-trailer 2022-06-21T11:05:03-04:00 2022-06-21T11:05:03-04:00

Though music played a surprisingly significant role in the first half of Netflix's Stranger Things 4, volume 1 never actually got around to giving Eddie Munson the sick guitar that was featured in this season's earliest trailers. In the first teaser for Stranger Things Volume 2, though, the outgoing king of Hawkins High's Hellfire Club is finally getting his ax just in time for an epic battle in the Upside Down.

Stranger Things 4 Volume 1 finally revealed the origins of Vecna, the malevolent presence that's been menacing Hawkins for years, and established that Eleven and her friends truly are one of the only groups capable of taking the cre …

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]]> Andrew Webster <![CDATA[Stranger Things 4’s new monster is made with practical effects, some CG, and lots of lube]]> https://www.theverge.com/23141145/stranger-things-4-vecna-monster-creation-design-practical-effects 2022-05-28T10:00:00-04:00 2022-05-28T10:00:00-04:00
Vecna in his natural habitat. | Image: Netflix

With terrifying beasts like the Demogorgon and the Mind Flayer, Stranger Things has slowly been building up an impressive bestiary of monsters. But, for the latest season, the show goes in a slightly different direction. Its new baddie, called Vecna, is less of a mindless beast and more of a classic-style '80s movie monster in the mold of Freddy or Jason. So showrunners Matt and Ross Duffer tapped prosthetics designer Barrie Gower to help bring their attempt at an iconic villain to life. "The quite interesting thing about Stranger Things is it's this huge property already, and it's got this great design sense to it," Gower tells The Verge. " …

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