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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
142
Mixed:
32
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
May 26, 2022
Season 4 Review:
Unfortunately, the positives are overwhelmed by so many disjointed things going on at once. For the most part it doesn’t matter that these are 20-year-olds playing 14. What matters is there’s simply too much that feels like plot fodder for a show stuffed with too many characters.
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The GuardianJul 1, 2022
Season 4.5 Review:
The fireworks finally begin and they don’t disappoint, with no big surprises (various characters find themselves on the edge of defeat in a fight to the death before visions of what truly matters to them give them the strength to rally at the last second) but a lot of impeccable judgments.
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The GuardianDec 4, 2019
Season 3 Review:
It’s a real and joyful return to form for the show that has been taken fiercely to the hearts of people who weren’t there the first time round and, perhaps even more fiercely, by those who were. The brothers continue to play with, reference and occasionally lift all the things that made the Johns, Carpenter and Hughes, and the Steph(/v)ens, King and Spielberg, enduringly great and mash them into something equally fun, racy and frightening as hell for us all on the small screen. It’s almost like being young again.
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Nov 26, 2025
Season 5 Review:
For now, however, these children remain frozen in time and space, unable to move past our nostalgic memories of the people they once were. It’s just as well that Vecna’s curse is coming to an end sooner rather than later. It’s time to let these adolescents do as adolescents are meant to do: grow up and move on with the rest of their lives.
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May 23, 2022
Season 4 Review:
The fourth season of Stranger Things is the biggest, scariest, most ambitious Stranger Things season yet. It’s also the least charming, least funny and least inventive season yet, which doesn’t mean that those elements are wholly lacking, just that the effort to concentrate on moments of human relatability often gets overwhelmed by the attempts at scale.
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Jun 30, 2019
Season 3 Review:
It is, indeed, bigger and not better. It's also bigger and not deeper. After establishing this world, we've now had two seasons that have done nothing to enhance the mythology of the Upside Down, to make me more interested in the monsters that dwell there, their goals in our world or justifiable explanations for why stupid scientist-types keep fiddling with this dimensional breach.
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Oct 23, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Stranger Things 2 is quite good and, if your expectations are in check, largely satisfying. The Duffer Brothers fall into very few traps of self-importance or self-awareness and they deliver a second season with an expanded assortment of '80s influences, an expanded cast of instantly embraceable characters and some expanded Stranger Things mythology without the bloat that inevitably dooms sequels.
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The IndependentNov 26, 2025
Season 5 Review:
But the Duffer Brothers have created something, in the beleaguered town of Hawkins and its luckless citizenry, that is admirably immersive. The danger now is that the desire to give it a spectacular send-off will undermine those charming, emotional moments where Stranger Things delved into one of the great cinematic subjects: finding your place in the world as you exit childhood.
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May 26, 2022
Season 4 Review:
The nine hours have their moments; a midseason scene in which the combative Max (Sadie Sink) escapes the monster’s grip is particularly affecting. But there’s way too much filler — dull teenage melodrama, jokey but routine action, horror that doesn’t have the authentically creepy charge it used to.
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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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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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Jul 14, 2016
Season 1 Review:
Harder is capturing the tone of another era. The Duffers manage that quite well, too, thanks to a fine sense of restraint that increasingly seems a lost art these days. There are a few good shocks here, but mostly there is patience. None of it would work without solid acting, and the series has that in abundance.
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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
The TimesNov 26, 2025
Season 5 Review:
Maya Hawke, meanwhile, is a star and David Harbour and Winona Ryder’s Hopper and Joyce are one of the engagingly imperfect couples on screen — let’s hope it doesn’t end badly, and she makes a confessional album about him. Episode four features a set piece that would be the envy of most movies and a revelation that sets up the final chapters very nicely indeed. The big question is: who will they kill off? Roll on Boxing Day.
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Nov 26, 2025
Season 5 Review:
the initial quartet of chapters are so packed with gory action, movie-grade visual effects and effortless, amusing interactions from its now-veteran ensemble that watching in spurts is probably advisable...You’ll want to savor the finely structured storytelling and extended shock setpieces that series creators Matt and Ross Duffer serve up. Additionally, those who indulge have extra time to obsess over all the nostalgic Easter eggs the Duffer Brothers plant. And considering the escalating pace at which the narrative barrels along on multiple tracks, viewers could need a breath-catching break; I know I was absolutely winded by the end of Chapter Four.
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Jul 14, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The nostalgic tone of Stranger Things succeeds less from discrete moment to moment than as an overall ambience; in synthy music, vivid shooting style, and deeply earnest performances, the show is committed to selling you a sort of story that doesn’t exist in mainstream pop culture anymore.
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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]
TV Guide MagazineOct 26, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Stranger Things 2 is a blast. [30 Oct 2017 - 12 Nov 2017, p.12]
TV Guide MagazineJul 8, 2016
Season 1 Review:
It's agreeable popcorn fare, though like many Netflix originals, might have had twice the impact at half the length. [11-24 Jul 2016, p.17]
Jul 1, 2019
Season 3 Review:
Mainly what you’ll be doing when you’ve finished your binge is trying to catch your breath (the finale is epic with a capital E, P, I and C), drying your eyes (it’ll also give you feels that you never even knew were feels) and wondering whether you’ll remain on the edge of your seat all the way until Season 4.
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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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May 24, 2022
Season 4 Review:
The writers don't balance the series' plots well or make each of these three (eventually four, as Eleven ventures off on her own journey of self discovery) feel vital. It leaves you with the feeling that half of what you've just invested time watching was utterly pointless. But the bigger problem is the wild departure in tone.
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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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Nov 26, 2025
Season 5 Review:
The truth is that “Stranger Things” itself has not reflected its stars’ obvious maturation with an accompanying complexity. All of “Stranger Things” is an exercise in nostalgia. In Season 5, the show now seems to pine not just for the neon hues and synth-driven pop of the 1980s it conjures so evocatively, but for a simpler time in its own run that can’t be brought back, no matter how high the budget. Though if anything, “Stranger Things” has only gotten less rough-edged over time.
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May 23, 2022
Season 4 Review:
With all these characters to track, “Stranger Things” certainly does have its work out for it, and mostly manages to keep everything moving at a steady enough clip once it establishes the four or so subplots that end up defining the season. The problem is that pretty much every plot (except for Eleven continuing to explore her origin story) gets less compelling the further they get from Hawkins.
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Oct 23, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Until Stranger Things 2 really gets going--and that takes a while--it trails an air of self-consciousness that veers into strained fan service at times. The good news is, the show’s core cast remains an extremely versatile and effective ensemble, and once the story kicks into a higher gear about halfway through the nine-episode season, a lot of the old magic returns.
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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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Nov 26, 2025
Season 5 Review:
Having seen four of the final season’s nine episodes, I can attest that there’s a lot of gratifying new material, particularly for fellow fans of author Madeleine L’Engle and Schnapp, and one very weird subplot. But the flashbacks are what interest me most; they feel anxious. There’s an urgency to them, a workmanlike sense of rigor that feels slightly at odds with the show’s mission and tone. Put simply: It feels, suddenly, like “Stranger Things” wants to explain itself. It wants to provide answers — and connections — that I both long for and fear the show can’t plausibly deliver.
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Jul 3, 2019
Season 3 Review:
Besides nostalgia, plot is really all “Stranger Things” has to offer, and this time it offers far too much of it. ... The sluggish pace of this season can be daunting to binge, and there’s ample evidence that the Duffers are running out of big ideas, often relying on violence to make up for a lack of imagination. Nevertheless, nostalgia remains a powerful drug that satisfies a primal urge, and on that note, “Stranger Things” can lay claim to an ample supply.
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Oct 30, 2017
Season 2 Review:
All in all, Stranger Things season 2 is ultimately more of the same, but still a very worthy sequel, which is good news for those of us (like me) who only hoped for the Duffer Brothers to manage to carry through the success of the original run with an affecting, and believable, continuation of the story.
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Jul 15, 2016
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