The 'Stranger Things' season 5 trailer teases a final showdown with Vecna. Here's everything we know about the end of the hit Netflix series.

By Callie Ahlgrim

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Jamie Campbell Bower's monstrous Vecna was finally unveiled as the show's main villain in season four. Originally a human named Henry Creel, Vecna now seems intent on destroying Hawkins and the world around it.

In the official trailer for season five, released on October 30, 2025, Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard) leads the charge against the forces of evil threatening their reality: "Maybe tonight is our break," he tells his friends. "We find Vecna, and we end this once and for all. Together."

Eleven, however, sounds less optimistic. She's the one with telekinetic powers, after all; she'll probably be the one to face off with Vecna in the end.

"This isn't like one of your campaigns," Eleven tells Mike in the trailer. "You don't get to write the ending. Not this time."

The trailer also includes glimpses of the show's other beloved duos: Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) hugging Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo); Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer) and Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton) sharing a tender moment; and Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin) carrying Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink).

The trailer concludes with a clip of Vecna beckoning Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), who was trapped in the Upside Down all the way back in season one. The lingering effects of Will's time in the alternate dimension allowed Vecna to possess him and wreak havoc in season two.

"William, you are going to help me," Vecna says, "one last time."

Released on July 16, 2025, the trailer includes shots of all the key remaining characters, including Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder), Jim Hopper (David Harbour), Robin Buckley (Maya Hawke), Erica Sinclair (Priah Ferguson), and Murray Bauman (Brett Clifford Gelman).

Brief clips of Max in a hospital bed and Dustin kneeling in front of a grave call back to season four's major events. Other shots, including a group of kids in a bunker, are more mysterious.

"Wherever this blood leads, I need you to fight one last time," Hopper says to Eleven. "Let's end this, kid."

The teaser concludes with a glimpse of Vecna emerging from a torn barrier — perhaps crossing over from the Upside Down into the real world. He utters one menacing line of dialogue: "Found you."

"The fall of 1987. Hawkins is scarred by the opening of the Rifts, and our heroes are united by a single goal: find and kill Vecna. But he has vanished — his whereabouts and plans unknown," the synopsis for season 5 reads.

"Complicating their mission, the government has placed the town under military quarantine and intensified its hunt for Eleven, forcing her back into hiding. As the anniversary of Will's disappearance approaches, so does a heavy, familiar dread. The final battle is looming — and with it, a darkness more powerful and more deadly than anything they've faced before. To end this nightmare, they'll need everyone — the full party — standing together, one last time."

Netflix announced that the final season will be released in three parts.

The first four episodes are set to arrive on November 26. The next three episodes are then due to air on December 25, before the much-anticipated finale lands on December 31.

In a teaser, Netflix released titles (or at least partial titles) for eight episodes in season five. They are, presumably, in order: "The Crawl," "The Vanishing of...," "The Turnbow Trap," "Sorcerer," "Shock Jock," "Escape from Camazotz," "The Bridge," and "The Rightside Up."

On May 6, 2023, the Duffer brothers announced that production was being put on pause until the Writers Guild of America and Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers had reached a "fair deal."

"Duffers here. Writing does not stop when filming begins," the X post began. "While we're excited to start production with our amazing cast and crew, it is not possible during this strike. We hope a fair deal is reached soon so we can all get back to work. Until then — over and out. #wgastrong."

On January 8, 2024, the official "Stranger Things" account posted on X that the fifth season had entered production. 

"THIS IS A CODE RED," the post read. "STRANGER THINGS 5 production has officially begun!!!"

On July 15, 2024, Netflix released a behind-the-scenes featurette from the set of "Stranger Things" season five, marking the halfway point of filming for the final season.

"I started when I was 10," Brown says in the video. "I'm now turning 20 years old. It feels very weird."

The teaser also features appearances from other members of the primary cast. Season five newcomer Linda Hamilton of "Terminator" fame also briefly gets the spotlight.

There are some fun glimpses in the trailer of Dustin wearing a Hellfire Club shirt (RIP Eddie) and the original four — Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Will — attending school together. There's also a brief shot of Hawke and Ryder sharing a scene, and one glimpse of Mike's younger sister Holly looking shocked by something off-screen.

Limited theatrical screenings of the series finale will take place across the US and Canada from December 31 at 5 p.m. PT — the same time the episode premieres on Netflix — and will run through January 1, 2026.

"We're beyond excited that fans will have the chance to experience the final episode of 'Stranger Things' in theaters," the Duffer Brothers said in a press release. "Getting to see it on the big screen, with incredible sound, picture, and a room full of fans, feels like the perfect — dare we say bitchin' — way to celebrate the end of this adventure."

During a July 2022 episode of the "Happy Sad Confused" podcast, the Duffer Brothers told host Josh Horowitz that they didn't expect the show's final season to be as long as season four, in part because it won't require the exposition that season four did. 

"I don't know if it's gonna be going 100 miles per hour at the start of five, but it's gonna be moving pretty fast," Matt Duffer said. "Characters are already gonna be in action, they're already gonna have a goal and drive, and I think that's gonna carve out at least a couple hours and make this season feel really different."

Ross Duffer said, however, that they're likely to have another "two-and-a-half-hour episode" for the series finale in order to avoid a television phenomenon in which a series' climax falls in the penultimate episode while the finale acts as more of a "wind down."

Ross Duffer told Netflix Geeked in 2022 that lingering questions about the Upside Down, such as why it's frozen in time to the point where Will was taken in season one, would be answered in season five. 

"The answers to what the Upside Down actually is, is really gonna be the core of what season five is, and the mysteries of season five," Ross said. "And those answers are really gonna lead us to the conclusion of this story."

The show's creators told Collider in July 2022 that they had confidence in the show's ending.

"We do feel good about the ending," Matt Duffer said. "I was like, OK, I think this ending is not… I'm not super insecure. I'm insecure about a lot of things, but I feel like this ending feels good." 

In 2022, Ross Duffer told The Wrap that when he and Matt pitched season five to Netflix, some tears were shed in the room.

"I mean, it was hard. It's the end of the story," he told the publication. "I saw executives crying who I've never seen cry before and it was wild. And it's not just to do with the story, just the fact that it's like, 'Oh my God, this thing that has defined so many of our lives, these Netflix people who have been with us from the beginning, seven years now,' and it's hard to imagine the journey coming to an end."

Eve Crosbie and Palmer Haasch contributed to an earlier version of this story.