After five seasons throughout the past 10 years and billions of hours of viewing by a worldwide audience, Stranger Things has concluded. Like Dungeons and Dragons, the role-playing game that inspired the show, Stranger Things began with a roll of the dice and an uncertain outcome. Fifteen cable networks rejected the show before Netflix picked it up as one of its early experiments in original programming.
Stranger Things combined 80’s nostalgia, science fiction, world-building with a compelling cast of characters to create a global pop culture phenomenon. With the release of the series finale on Dec. 31, 2025, Stranger Things promised to live on not only as a Netflix favorite but also as a Broadway show and through an ensemble cast that is already branching out into diverse new roles.
The young actors who literally grew up alongside their castmates have their entire careers ahead of them — along with the challenge that follows playing an iconic role at an early age. Actor Sadie Sink will always be associated with her character Max Mayfield and the song “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God),” but she has already been recognized for her work in film (The Whale) and on Broadway (John Proctor Is the Villain) and will soon join the Marvel cinematic universe in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Millie Bobby Brown, who played the powerful Eleven, will return to solving crimes in a different era (with a different haircut) in Enola Holmes 3, where she plays Sherlock’s sister. Additionally, audiences will recognize the voices of Dustin and Lucas (Gaten Matarazzo and Caleb McLaughlin) in the upcoming films Goat and Animal Farm.
Stranger Things harnessed nostalgia for a world before Netflix through the older members of the cast. Winona Ryder, Matthew Modine, Paul Reiser, Sean Astin, and Linda Hamilton all played iconic characters in the era of big hair and shoulder pads. Fans of the show can now find them fighting bullies, ghosts, jocks, and cyborgs in Heathers, Beetlejuice, Vision Quest, Rudy, and Terminator 2.
Like any show with such a broad, passionate audience, fans are divided about how Stranger Things ended — or even if it did. Some were satisfied with how the gang defeated their nemesis and made it to graduation. Others were underwhelmed and disappointed with the finale, noting plot holes and ambiguity. Was the final battle epic, or could part have been axed? Did the epilogue stretch out too long, or did it provide the bittersweet, touching conclusion audiences deserved after a long journey? After the finale, rumors circulated that there was actually one more episode left that would answer lingering questions, however one was never released leaving fans with questions and frustration.
For now, anyone who wants more Stranger Things can spend a couple of hours in Hawkins, Indiana, but they have to travel to New York to get there. Stranger Things: The First Shadow is a play new to Broadway, and you can find some of the familiar characters back in 1959, a simpler time that gets turned upside down, laying the groundwork for the world near-ending decades later.
The show succeeded beyond the expectations of everyone, and for the young actors, it was just a start. From being rejected multiple times to becoming the most-streamed show on Netflix, the series and the actors have had quite the journey and have come a long way.
