Stranger Things season 5 runtimes officially revealed (and they might surprise you)

It's been a fantastic year when it comes to all the new releases on Netflix, but things are about to get even better with the highly anticipated release of easily the best Netflix show ever made. We've all been waiting for this show to return for years, and now the wait is almost over!

Stranger Things season 5 is set to be released on Netflix very soon, and now we've got some more juicy deets to share about the final installment. If you've been keeping up with this hit sci-fi series, you've most likely recently come across a report stating that each episode of the fifth season would be over an hour long. Of course, this was just a rumor. Neither Netflix nor the show's creative team had officially confirmed this.

But I guess the Stranger Things team eventually found out about it, because they’ve now stepped in to clarify the real runtimes for some of the season 5 episodes. Based on the actual runtimes, it appears that the rumor is not entirely true.

Stranger Things season 5 official episode runtimes

Series co-creator Ross Duffer took to Instagram on Oct. 13 to address the swirling rumors about the Stranger Things season 5 episode lengths, giving fans a much-needed clarification straight from the source. He shared a video of the show's title page on Netflix and the first four episodes of the fifth season with their runtimes.

Here's the breakdown below:

• "Chapter One: The Crawl" - 1 hour and 8 minutes
• "Chaper Two: The Vanishing of..." - 54 minutes
• "Chapter Three: The Turnbow Trap" - 1 hour and 6 minutes
• "Chapter Four: Sorcerer" - 1 hour and 23 minutes

While three of the episodes are over an hour, the second episode is actually less than 60 minutes. Why that is the case is unknown, but it could come down to pacing and storytelling choices. Given that most of the episodes of the first batch are over an hour, the last two batches may consist of longer episodes as well. Although not confirmed, it is very likely that the series finale will clock in at least 2 hours. The season 4 finale was 2 hours and 22 minutes. I doubt the Duffer Brothers would go any shorter for the grand finale of the entire series. Go big or go home, right?

Stranger Things season 5 takes place a year after everything that happened in the previous season. It's the fall of 1987, and Hawkins is once again facing dark forces from the Upside Down. The gang is on a mission to put a stop to Vecna once and for all, but their plan is complicated when the military arrives and starts targeting Eleven.

You can expect to see the return of talented actors such as Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, Sadie Sink, Natalia Dyer, and many others.

The first four episodes of Stranger Things season 5 will hit Netflix on Nov. 26, 2025. Episodes 5 through 7 are set to premiere on Dec. 25, with the epic series finale arriving on Dec. 31. That's eight episodes in total that make up the fifth and final season. Additionally, each batch will drop on Netflix at 5:00 p.m. PT/8:00 p.m. ET on their release dates.