As “Stranger Things” comes to a close, with the Netflix hit’s series finale set for release on New Year’s Eve, its impact on culture over the last nine years is hard to ignore.
The fifth and final season helped the show achieve new viewership records before it was even released, then achieved Netflix’s biggest-ever opening week for an English-language series. Now, less than a month after Season 5 Volume 1 and days ahead of Volume 2, Netflix reports that the entirety of “Stranger Things” has crossed 1.2 billion views in total.
That statistic, calculated by dividing the total amount of time the series has ever been streamed by the combined runtime of all available episodes, puts “Stranger Things” as a whole above any series in Netflix history — even “Wednesday” and “Squid Game,” which are the only projects with individual seasons that rank above “Stranger Things” Season 4. Released in 2023, Season 4 remains at No. 2 on Netflix’s list of its most popular English-language TV title of all time. Season 3, which is more than six years old now, only recently fell off that chart.
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As such, the most-rewatched scenes in the show’s history came in those seasons: No. 1 is the scene in Season 4 Episode 7 when Nancy (Natalia Dyer) falls into a trance while being possessed by Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), followed by the Season 3 Episode 8 scene when Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Suzie (Gabriella Pizzolo) sing the “NeverEnding Story” theme song together.
In just 25 days, Volume 1 of Season 5 has reached 102.6 million views. It’s all but guaranteed that Season 5 will make the all-time viewership chart next month; if it was eligible now, before its final episode have been released, it would already rank at No. 9, between “Bridgerton” Season 3 (2024) and “The Night Agent” Season 1 (2023). Plus, Netflix measures its all-time chart ending 91 days after each title’s final episodes are released, meaning Season 5 will continue accruing views until three months after the New Year’s Eve finale. The season has a solid shot to make it to No. 1 during the first quarter of 2026.
In addition, “Stranger Things” Season 5 has ranked as the most-watched title of the week in 90 of the 93 countries Netflix tracks while also directing viewers back to previous seasons. “Stranger Things” became the first Netflix series to have four seasons in the Top 10 at once, then the first to chart with five seasons — and all five seasons remain on the chart even now, four weeks since Season 5 debuted. And since the advent of the Netflix Top 10 in 2021, the series’ five seasons have made the global Netflix Top 10 a combined 78 times. All 93 countries tracked have seen on “Stranger Things” on their individual Top 10 lists at one point or another.
Still, the reach of “Stranger Things” expands beyond Netflix views.
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The show made headline after headline for its use of “Running Up That Hill” in Season 4. 38 years after the song was released, “Stranger Things” helped earn Kate Bush her first-ever Top 10 hit in the U.S. Additionally, Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” (1986) made the U.K. Top 10 for the first time after being used in the season.
With Season 5, that effect has been replicated again and again. According to Spotify, several oldies have seen major streaming boosts since their use in Volume 1. Among Gen Z, Diana Ross’ “Upside Down” (1980) saw an increase in streams of 1,250% and Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now” (1987) jumped by 880%. Across all demographics, streams have risen for The Chordettes’ “Mr. Sandman” (1954) by 625% and for ABBA’s “Fernando” (1976) by 335%, with the latter getting a 645% boost with Gen Z. The music streamer also reports that users have created 205,000 “Stranger Things”-themed playlists since Season 1 debuted in 2016.
Eggo, the frozen waffle brand that has existed since 1956, enjoyed renewed interest after being prominently featured in “Stranger Things” as the favorite snack of Millie Bobby Brown’s character, Eleven. Parent company Kellogg’s reported 14% growth in the fourth quarter of 2017, which followed the release of Season 2, and 9.4% growth in the first four months of 2018.
Netflix also boasts that interest in “Dungeons & Dragons” has grown by 673% since the 2016 debut of “Stranger Things,” which constantly references the table-top role-playing game — though it must be noted that the “Dungeons & Dragons” universe has made many big strides of its own over the last nine years, including expansions to the game itself, a 2023 feature film and more. Still, its rise — which also includes sales increases of 96% in both 2017 and 2018 — was still heavily impacted by “Stranger Things,” and the show and game have released multiple official collaborations.
The show also drove a collaboration between Netflix and Nabisco, with the snack company releasing limited-edition “Stranger Things” Chip’s Ahoy cookies ahead of Season 5. The campaign around the cookies reached 11 billion impressions.
Naturally, the series has been a massive boon to the business of content. Since 2016, “Stranger Things” has created more than 8,000 production jobs in the U.S. and contributed $1.4 billion to the national GDP.
That impact has been strongest in Georgia, where most of the series was filmed, with $650 million contributed to the state GDP and more than 2,000 vendors involved in production. Next in line was California, with $500 million contributed to the state GDP.
“Stranger Things” has also spawned a universe of its own, even before on-screen spinoffs have been released. In the U.S. alone, “Stranger Things” books, comics and other publishing projects have crossed 3.1 million sales since Season 1. “Stranger Things: The Experience,” a live event that was first produced in 2022, has led to 850,000 ticket sales across cities including Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, London, Paris, Brazil and Australia. Other live events around the globe, pegged to Season 5 specifically, have attracted more than 300,000 fans across 32 cities and 23 countries, with highlights including the “One Last Ride” cycling event in Los Angeles (50,000 fans) and a parade in São Paulo (13,000). There are still more events to come in London, Bangkok, Milan, Las Vegas and Madrid as 2025 concludes.
And in an unprecedented move especially for Netflix, the series finale on New Year’s Eve will be played in movie theaters in the U.S. and Canada.
“Stranger Things: The First Shadow” a play that serves as a prequel to the TV series, debuted in London’s West End in 2023, with a Broadway transfer opening earlier this year. The play won four Tony Awards in the U.S. plus two Olivier Awards and Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards in the U.K. — adding to the 70 awards and 230 nominations the TV series has earned to date, which includes 12 Emmy wins.
And when looking at the career trajectories of the young cast of “Stranger Things,” the series can be looked at as a Disney Channel-like talent pipeline, generating celebrities out of tweens who were relatively unknown beforehand. Brown has become Netflix royalty, leading the films “The Electric State” and “Damsel” — the latter being the streamer’s No. 10 most popular English-language movie of all time, plus the “Enola Holmes” franchise, which has a third film premiering in 2026.
Social media is another good measure of the cast’s rise. Netflix’s earliest tracked Instagram follower count for Brown — which came before “Stranger Things Season 1 debuted but potentially after trailers and marketing had been released — was 2.1 million, and she now has more than 68 million. Sadie Sink, who plays Max, has the next-highest following with 26.8 million, up from 1.1 million before her debut in Season 2. Other following increases include 6,400 to 23 million for Finn Wolfhard; 10,000 to 23.4 million for Noah Schnapp; 18,000 to to 13 million for Caleb McLaughlin; and 20,000 to 17 million for Matarazzo. New Season 5 stars Jake Connelly and Nell Fisher have seen increases from 12,000 to 582,000 and 30,000 to 875,000, respectively.
Also on social, the pre-launch marketing campaign for “Stranger Things” Season 5 was Netflix’s biggest ever with 5.8 billion impressions. The concurrent rewatch campaign for previous seasons generated 1.3 billion impressions, and “Stranger Things: The Experience” has achieved 2 billion social impressions to date. Even the show’s Easter eggs have gone viral; the subtle inclusion of a “Missing Teen” hotline for Eleven in Season 5 went viral online and resulted in more than 1 million calls.
From Variety US