Updated:

Dec 30, 2025 3:37 pm

Posted:

Dec 30, 2025 2:02 pm

Netflix has released the trailer for the Stranger Things Season 5 finale, teasing the end of the long-running show.

Warning! Spoilers for Stranger Things up to this point follow:

The trailer begins with a teary-eyed Jim Hopper (David Harbour) asking Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) to “fight one last time.” We then get a series of clips from prior episodes as Jim admits that Eleven was robbed of her childhood and faced horrors no kid should face. We end up in the present and the upcoming finale, where Eleven, Hopper, Kali Prasad, also known as Eight, and Murray Bauman look to defeat Vecna once and for all. Eleven prepares to enter the bath at Hawkins Lab in the Upside Down, which will amplify her powers.

— Netflix (@netflix) December 30, 2025

Meanwhile, Gaten Matarazzo’s Dustin and Caleb McLaughlin’s Lucas look out over a hellscape. Vecna is hooked up to his horrible pulsating lair in The Abyss, where, presumably, he’s using the kidnapped children as vessels to effectively replace Earth with the Abyss, the alternate dimension from which all the horrible monsters of Stranger Things originated. Cue an explosion, an intense scream from Dustin (perhaps one of the main characters is caught up in the explosion), and a curious shot in which a curtain closes — literally — on Eleven, Max, and Kali. Could this a glimpse at a scene inside Vecna's mind?

The trailer ends with what looks like our heroes’ plan — outlined in Episode 7 — in action. Operation Beanstalk, as it’s called, will let Vecna draw the two worlds together and wait until the Squawk radio tower pokes through one of the rifts, so Eleven can make her move. Eleven will then enter Vecna’s mind and ambush him, while the others climb the beanstalk into the Abyss to rescue the kids. That’s the plan, anyway. “Mother of god,” Dustin says as he looks into the sky.

And that’s where the trailer ends — with the Squawk radio tower poking through one of the rifts. The Stranger Things Season 5 finale, Episode 8, is called The Rightside Up, and has an official runtime of 2 hours 8 minutes. It will be screened in theaters nationwide at the same time it is shown on Netflix, at 5pm PT on New Year’s Eve. Co-creator Ross Duffer has told fans they should only see it in theaters if they’re cool with crying in a crowded room. , even as there are big questions over who might die in the final episode.