Stranger Things is wrapping up its run on Netflix with a fifth and final season spread across three different drops — but not every cast member is returning.
The hit series, which debuted in 2016, focuses on a fictional town where a series of supernatural events take place and cause mystery and mayhem. Over the course of five seasons, Stranger Things has catapulted its cast members — Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton and Joe Keery — to stardom.
Ahead of the show’s highly-anticipated season 4 premiere in 2022, creators Matt and Ross Duffer announced that they were going to end the series after one more chapter in Hawkins, Indiana.
“Seven years ago, we planned out the complete story arc for Stranger Things,” they detailed in an open letter in February 2022. “At the time, we predicted the story would last four to five seasons. It proved too large to tell in four but — as you’ll see for yourselves — we are now hurtling toward our finale. Season 4 will be the penultimate season; season 5 will be the last.”
Holy Upside Down! ‘Stranger Things’ Cast From Season 1 to Now: Photos
Later that year, the Duffer Brothers opened up about their vision for the final episodes and addressed the season 4 episode split.
“The original plan was to release it all at once again. But as we began turning over episodes, everyone began to feel the season was too big to be released in one batch — at nearly 13 hours, it is really more two seasons than one,” they told Variety in May 2022 after Volume 1 dropped the first seven episodes. “Episode 7 is as big as any season finale we’ve ever had, so it made sense to everyone involved to split the season there. Episode 7 really serves as the end of the second act — and we feel that our final act had enough meat on the bone to make up Volume 2.”
Keep scrolling to see which cast members have confirmed they are returning — and who won’t be back:
Winona Ryder
Ryder’s Joyce has been featured in the season 5 trailer and stills.
David Harbour
Before filming the finale season, Harbour teased Hopper’s potential story line in season 5.
“We’re walking into season 5. I’ve got a couple more months to train,” he said at the Middle East Film & Comic Con in March 2023. “I did a lot of training for season 4. He [Hopper] was in a very specific position, that Russian prison. It was about making him a different guy and sort of shedding a layer of himself physically, mentally, and emotionally. But now he’s back in town, he’s back in America where they have cheeseburgers, so he will be well-fed.”
Millie Bobby Brown
Brown admitted in March 2023 she was “very ready” to move on from Stranger Things, but Eleven will appear.
“I’m definitely ready to wrap up. I feel like there’s a lot of the story that’s been told now,” she explained to Seventeen. “It’s been in our lives for a very long time. But I’m very ready to say goodbye to this chapter of my life, and open new ones up. I’m able to create stories myself that are important to me and focus on the bigger picture. But I’m really grateful [for the show].”
Finn Wolfhard
Wolfhard, who plays Mike, exclusively told Us Weekly that he was mourning the end of the show after returning for season 5. He called the final season “bittersweet, bitter and then sweet.”
Gaten Matarazzo
“There’s an excitement there because you always want to wrap it up and you want to see how these characters are going to finally develop one last time, and how they’re going to finish their journeys,” Matarazzo said on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in March 2023, noting that the experience was “bittersweet” as well. “But also, there’s a deep fear that’s been like — not only has it been amazing, but it’s been, like, pretty great job security.”
Matarazzo said he was looking forward to Dustin’s final arc. “I think [the story is] in the best hands it can be,” he explained. “Matt and Ross know these characters better than I think we might. It’s really interesting ’cause they trust us all very much to make our own decisions and go about the scenes the way we’ve always instinctually wanted to.”
Caleb McLaughlin
McLaughlin is reprising his role as Lucas after ending season 4 on a dramatic note.
Noah Schnapp
“There will definitely be another center point for Will in season 5 and I think it’s really exciting and I’m definitely so excited to see what they have in store,” Schnapp exclusively told Us in January 2023. “They won’t tell me specifics, but they were like, ‘You just wait. You will be very happy and excited. So sit tight.’”
He continued: “I think the story opened and started with Will, and I think ending it with him and circling back on that is a nice way for them to wrap it up.”
Sadie Sink
While season 4 ended with Sink’s Max in a coma, photos from the set confirmed that the actress returns in some capacity.
Natalia Dyer
“I have no doubt the bigger, scarier, action-y plot will be very much there. That’s almost guaranteed,” Dyer told Netflix’s Tudum in July 2022 about her wishes for season 5 before returning to film. “But I really am looking forward to hopefully having some of those nice character moments of these people connecting and showing that they care about each other. That’s the heart of what we like to do. I believe that’s part of the appeal of the show — the heart.”
Charlie Heaton
Heaton, who plays Jonathan, is confirmed to be part of the season 5 cast after being with the show since its 2016 debut on Netflix.
Joe Keery
Keery a.k.a fan-favorite Steve admitted in August 2023 that while it “does feel like it’s time” to wrap up the series, it “won’t be easy” to see it all come to an end.
“I owe my whole career to being on that show and all the opportunities that I had since are because of that show,” he told WWD at the time while filming. “So it’s very convoluted. There’s a sense of relief, there’s a sense of sadness. I guess my goal is to just really soak it up as much as I can while we’re doing it, and not take any of it for granted because it’s been an amazing ride with such great people. And then once it’s done, move forward and try to just hold on to the joy that we had when we were making it.”
Keery added that “everything has a beginning and the middle and an end” so it will be “it’ll be nice to have the end of [Stranger Things] too.”
Maya Hawke
After returning to set as Robin, Hawke said it was “already starting to be heartbreaking,” telling Entertainment Tonight in June 2024, “It’s the end of a really long journey. Longer for some of my castmates, even, than for me. So it’s really sentimental. But as a late addition to the cast member, I feel like it’s my job to be here to facilitate their feelings and just be grateful and excited to have been a part of it at all.”
What the Cast of ‘Stranger Things’ Looks Like in Real Life
Eduardo Franco
Franco, who joined the cast in season 5 as Jonathan’s best friend Argyle, revealed during a January 2024 appearance on the Steve Varley show that he would not be returning for the final season.
When host Steve Varley shared that fans were in a “panic” after a cast photo was released with Franco missing, the actor said he appreciates that there is “some concern” but he “never got a phone call” about reprising the role.
“So I think, yeah, I think that’s it,” he added.
Brett Gelman
“It’s going great and it’s going to be amazing,” Gelman exclusively told Us in July 2024 about being halfway through filming the Netflix show’s final season as Murray.
Gelman reassured Us that viewers will be happy with how Stranger Things comes to an end, saying, “The fans are going to love it.”
Priah Ferguson
Ferguson, who plays Erica Sinclair, reflected on how the final season of Stranger Things is all about wrapping loose story lines up. “I definitely want to see closure for the whole series. Hopefully at the end of season 5, I want to see closure and the whole situation being resolved,” she told Us in May 2022. “I don’t want it to end on a very traumatic situation like the past seasons have. I want it to be that we defeated the monster and we won over it.”
Jamie Campbell Bower
In July 2024, Netflix released a video showing the cast filming the final season. Fans caught glimpses of Bower reprising his spooky role as Vecna.
Joseph Quinn
“No, sadly, RIP. [Eddie is] fully under that ground,” Matt told Empire in October 2025. “I love that Joe Quinn is toying with people! But no, he’s dead.”
