Calling Stranger Things Season 5 “hotly anticipated” would be like calling Eleven “a little bit traumatized”: a massive understatement. It’s almost been a full decade since we met the Hawkins gang for the first time, and now their journey is almost at an end. After multiple delays, Netflix ultimately settled on a 2025 release date for the fifth and final season, and the show is actually on track to finish before the end of the year.
But in a teaser released at Netflix’s Tudum event, we learned the series is stretching the “2025” release window to its very limits with an unprecedented three-part release schedule, meaning this year’s holiday season will be dominated by this iconic sci-fi series. Check out the full date announcement video below.
Though the teaser contains footage from Season 5, the video mostly contains a montage of clips from previous seasons, with the announcement of three different release dates for the season. Volume 1 will release on November 26, the day before Thanksgiving, and Volume 2 will release Christmas Day, but you’ll have to wait until the very last hours of 2025 — New Year’s Eve — to watch the finale.
Season 5 will have eight episodes, so it’s likely we’ll see four episodes release in Volume 1, three in Volume 2, and then just one in Volume 3, but knowing Stranger Things, these episodes could reach feature-length runtimes. So even though we’re only seeing part of these season, they should keep you occupied throughout the winter.
This isn’t the first time Netflix has released Stranger Things in sections. Season 4 released seven episodes in May 2022, but made fans wait another two months to catch the final two episodes in July. With this being the final season, two separate waits will definitely be worth it.
But what does this mean for the story of Stranger Things’ final chapter? In Season 4, the division between volumes happened at a major cliffhanger, with Nancy fully under Vecna’s trance and the reveal of One, the predecessor of Eleven. If Season 5 follows the same principle, then there won’t be just one but two major cliffhangers for fans to mull over. Thankfully, there’s only a week to wait between Volume 2 and the very last episode of the entire season. We’ve definitely waited long enough.
