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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
142
Mixed:
32
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
SlashfilmNov 26, 2025
Season 5 Review:
Ultimately, it feels like "Stranger Things" season 5 is too big to fail. If you've spent the last several years growing to love these characters and their Amblin-inspired adventures, you're pretty much in the tank and ready to get swept up in all the action one last time. But there's a weariness at play here, too — a sense that the show probably should've wrapped things up already. Better late than never.
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RogerEbert.comNov 26, 2025
Season 5 Review:
While these four episodes stumble a bit in terms of pacing and urgency, especially early on, they end on such a satisfying, long-awaited note that fans who have literally grown up watching this show are unlikely to care. They’ll just be counting the days until the next drop.
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Jul 1, 2022
Season 4.5 Review:
On a visual level, the season’s second volume delivers a blockbuster experience, full of epic special effects, though it’s moved much closer to a gory horror movie than to the ET and Goonies-style adventures of its early years. This overarching darkness, combined with the endlessly frenetic pace of the season, can make the long episodes exhausting to watch. ... Even so, I wasn’t prepared for the immense melancholy of these last two very long episodes.
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RogerEbert.comJul 1, 2022
Season 4.5 Review:
These last two episodes do a good job of paring down the action to four basic threads (instead of the eight or nine we had in Chapters Five through Seven). ... Most of it [the reunions and all the emotional beats] feels earned; some of it could go. As for the fun, these last two episodes have their moments, but the only new pop culture references one could dig into might be the role metal music plays in the group’s plan.
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TV Guide MagazineJul 8, 2019
Season 3 Review:
While the mayhem over eight episodes can grow repetitive and tiresome--I lost count of how many ties bodies were hurled against and sometimes through walls--there's a light touch even in the darker moments. [8-21 Jul 2019, p.14]
Jul 3, 2019
Season 3 Review:
A lot of John Hughes-style teenage rom-com material, especially in the early episodes, with the usual heavy overlay of ’80s nostalgia — “Cheers,” Jazzercise, Ralph Macchio, New Coke. The Duffers’ presentation of this is perfectly competent, but it can’t help feeling beside the point.
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Jul 2, 2019
Season 3 Review:
This is by far the most impressive season, even if the action sequences are — like the threat of the Upside Down itself — a bit repetitive. (You can set your watch to Eleven’s conveniently-timed arrival whenever a good guy is facing certain death.) But the growth of the characters — whether through age or, like Hopper and Joyce, through learning to deal with past traumas — means that they feel different and surprising, even when the story is traveling paths we’ve been on many times before.
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Jul 1, 2019
Season 3 Review:
It’s a bit of a stretch to say this season is truly gory, but it’s definitely ookier than the previous two. It’s also much more blatantly aware of itself and its place in the Zeitgeist. ... There’s nothing wrong with any of this per se, but it adds to the impression that the Duffers & Co. are writing what they know rather than trying to break new ground. Then again, part of Stranger Things’ DNA is that it isn’t inventing so much as reinventing.
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Jun 30, 2019
Season 3 Review:
Most of season two’s flaws and frustrations have been ironed out in satisfying and interesting ways in season three. ... This time around, however, a new set of problems arises — and weirdly enough, a lot of them don’t concern the story itself, but the show’s aesthetic and technical choices.
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Oct 26, 2017
Season 2 Review:
I’m not sure Stranger Things creatively needed a second season, and for several episodes it seems like Stranger Things 2 isn’t convinced of it either. But it’s a still a good time, it’s nicely paced at nine episodes and it blends the suspense of ’80s horror with the heart of an ’80s teen romance.
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Oct 24, 2017
Season 2 Review:
The result is a second season that replicates and, indeed, enhances the show's central charms -- its group of pubescent nerds, and nostalgic sense of time and place -- while still feeling less compelling with its teenage contingent. All told, it's an impressive follow-up, if one perhaps burdened by expectations raised by the over-the-moon reaction, to couch it in the fantasy of the era, to the debut.
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The Daily BeastOct 23, 2017
Season 2 Review:
While it might be frustrating to have sat through nearly 300 minutes of television only to realize not much has happened, the Duffer Brothers have constructed such a rich, vibrant universe and populated it with such entertaining characters--those kids really are a hoot--that it’s still fun to go along for the ride, slower though it is.
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Jul 14, 2016
Season 1 Review:
What I like most about Stranger Things is the way the Duffer Brothers never short-shrift the emotional content of the show in favor of thrills and CGI. ... [Ryder's] hysteria can be grating. At points, she’s almost a parody of a crazed mother, one that might fit in more on a different, more comedic show.
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Dec 1, 2025
Season 5 Review:
“Stranger Things” lacks the wide-eyed, Spielbergian wonder of its early seasons. But even in its bloated, current form, there are still some charming character moments, bits of good humor and judicious use of ‘80s pop tunes (Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now” gets a spooky workout).
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The PlaylistJul 1, 2022
Season 4.5 Review:
It’s a massive production with characters that fans truly love finding their moments to be actual heroes instead of just playing ones in Dungeons & Dragons. And, despite its bloated, cluttered failures, it is a show that truly attempts to satisfy its fan base in every way possible.
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The PlaylistMay 25, 2022
May 25, 2022
Season 4 Review:
When it’s not rehashing plot elements of past seasons, “Stranger Things 4” foregoes the Amblin-esque, ‘80s movie joy of previous seasons in favor of a more gruesome, horror-tinged story. True believers may not care about this tonal shift but more casual viewers – and those who value not having a TV show waste their time with needlessly over-long episodes – probably will.
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Nov 26, 2025
Season 5 Review:
Because what the fifth and final season of "Stranger" has going for it is in its spirit: it certainly feels like the "Stranger" we've come to know and love over nearly a decade. But it is a distinctly imperfect final bow; the season seesaws between thrilling and annoying, from emotionally satisfying to logically baffling.
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