“Stranger Things” Season 5 Run Times Revealed; Ross Duffer Settles Fan Debate

Mumbai, October 14, 2025 – Big news for “Stranger Things” fans has arrived. Series co-creator Ross Duffer recently shared the actual runtimes for the first four episodes of Season 5. This is the final season of the super-popular Netflix show. Mr. Duffer posted this important update on his personal Instagram account on Monday, October 13.

Stranger Things”Season 5 Episodes Run Times

His post finally put an end to many online rumours. Some reports were saying that every episode of the final season would be like a full-length movie. These rumours suggested episodes could be 90 minutes to two hours long.

The “ACTUAL runtimes” shared by Ross Duffer show the episodes will be long, but not all are movie-length. Only one episode in the first set is close to the 90-minute mark.

Here is the breakdown of the runtimes for the first four episodes, which make up Volume 1 of the final season:

• Chapter One: “The Crawl” will run for 1 hour and 8 minutes (68 minutes). Mr. Duffer has called this the “most eventful first episode since Season 1.”
• Chapter Two: The title is still a secret, but the episode will be 54 minutes long. This is the shortest episode in this first batch. Duffer teased that this episode has “by far the craziest cold open we’ve ever done.”
• Chapter Three: “The Turnbow Trap” will be 1 hour and 6 minutes (66 minutes).
• Chapter Four: “Sorcerer” is the longest of the lot. It clocks in at 1 hour and 23 minutes (83 minutes). This episode will serve as the mid-season finale.

The runtimes confirm that the episodes are longer than the early seasons of “Stranger Things.” The show’s earlier seasons mostly kept episodes under one hour. However, the new times are shorter than most episodes in the record-breaking Season 4. Season 4 had episodes running well over an hour, and its finale was over two hours long.

Release Plan for Stranger Things Final Season

Netflix is releasing the final season in three separate parts. This is a very unique plan for the show.

• Volume 1, which includes the four episodes mentioned above, will premiere on November 26, 2025.
• Volume 2 will have three more episodes. These episodes are scheduled to release on Christmas Day, December 25, 2025.

The final episode, titled “The Rightside Up,” will be released as a special one-off. It will air on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2025.

Fans must remember that these runtimes are only for the first four episodes. The lengths of the remaining four episodes, especially the big series finale, are still unknown. Many people expect the final episode to be very, very long, perhaps even longer than the Season 4 finale.

The final season is set in the fall of 1987. The whole group is coming together to fight Vecna. They must stop the darkness that has taken over Hawkins. The final battle is going to be big. Fans are very excited but also sad to see the journey of Eleven, Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Will come to an end.