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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
142
Mixed:
32
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
Dec 1, 2025
Season 5 Review:
As I watched the episodes that make up the first half, I found myself getting caught up despite the lack of emotional depth, if straining to remember some of the finer details of what was going on. .... I found the final moments of the final episode coming out this month both genuinely thrilling and genuinely moving. Almost despite itself, Season 5 pulls off a scene of impressive emotional payoff, pushing past all of the action of the earlier episodes to say something profound about being young.
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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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Jul 2, 2019
Season 3 Review:
This eight-episode installment available Thursday just might be my favorite of the series. It has more heart and far more willingness to address the messiness that comes with adolescence. It also features several genuinely creepy moments that have everything to do with something not of this world.
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Jul 1, 2022
Season 4.5 Review:
Stranger Things has taken the idea of playing the long game to heart a bit too literally, capping its super-sized fourth season with two sprawling episodes that total nearly four hours. Whether that's a reward to fans or self-indulgence by the producers rests in the eye of the beholder, but after this, it's hard to imagine many concluding that ending things with season five qualifies as premature.
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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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ColliderNov 26, 2025
Season 5 Review:
These four episodes make a statement that the Duffers are ending their series on their own terms, even while they serve as a culmination of everything that has come before. That's a good thing, and if Stranger Things can maintain that balance the rest of the way, the back half of the final season should be able to deliver the type of remarkable ending the residents of Hawkins and the viewers watching at home all deserve.
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ColliderJul 1, 2022
Season 4.5 Review:
Ultimately, it speaks to the strengths of the show and its cast that Season 4 manages to extend moments of hope and poignancy even in the midst of greater circumstances that could quite literally signal the end of the world. The performances in these final episodes are staggeringly good.
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ColliderMay 23, 2022
ColliderJul 14, 2016
Jul 1, 2022
Season 4.5 Review:
Stranger Things at this point feels nostalgic for itself: its characters, its lore, and more importantly the emotional connection its fans feel towards it. ... The show’s scope is getting bigger, its cast more expansive, and its stakes more universal. And it’s a miracle that it manages to keep all these plates largely spinning, even as its runtimes threaten to give Titanic a run for their money.
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Nov 26, 2025
Season 5 Review:
Stranger Thing Season 5 Part 1— streaming now — is full of gaudy special effects, nonsensical lore, and insane plot devices, and yet you will still somehow fall under the show’s spell. That’s because it was never the spectacle or super-sized episode run times that won audiences over. No, the best part of Stranger Things is still, as it’s always been, the sheer humanity of its characters and the incandescent talent of its young cast.
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Jul 1, 2022
Season 4.5 Review:
As big as Stranger Things has stretched in season four, the avenues by which its parallel narrative threads will converge are becoming more clear with the revelations of volume two. And that’s exciting, watching as all of these characters, long broken apart, find their way back to each other.
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May 23, 2022
Season 4 Review:
Its formula is tried and true — but has also grown stale. Hardcore fans of Stranger Things will likely find nothing wrong with the new season, as is their wont. They’ll love the nods to Barb (Shannon Purser) and character reunions. They’ll obsess over potential love triangles and thrill over creepy new flourishes. I personally wish the show had reined it in a bit, focused on the core cast over the newbs, and tried something truly creative with its storytelling instead of just nostalgia baiting.
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Jul 5, 2022
Jul 13, 2016
Season 1 Review:
Over the course of the eight hours, the story and characters take on enough life of their own so that the references don't feel self-indulgent, and so that the series can be appreciated even if you don't know the plot of E.T. or the title font of Stephen King's early novels (a huge influence on the show's own opening credits) by heart.
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iJul 1, 2022
Season 4.5 Review:
The action and the four-series storyline – all of which untangles into one simple, satisfying thread towards the end of episode two – are excellent, but secondary to what Stranger Things does best. That I was worried for every single character, that there was not one I would be willing to say goodbye to is a testament to the world building and relationships the show’s creators, the Duffer Brothers, have achieved.
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iMay 24, 2022
Season 4 Review:
This is a series so full of surprises, Easter eggs and references that it’s a delight to know you’ll be able to enjoy them in all their glory. But here’s what I can tell you: it’s fantastic. ... Series four is certainly a change in tone and even genre, but it’s all the better for it.
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Nov 26, 2025
Season 5 Review:
After an unwieldy, exposition-heavy first episode, the Duffers quickly find their groove again in Stranger Things Season 5, Vol. 1. These four episodes are a welcome return to the town and characters of Hawkins. The fight against Vecna takes a new path and the show’s tone has matched the maturing of its cast and experiences of its characters.
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IndieWireMay 23, 2022
Season 4 Review:
Season 4 feels like it’s been designed to produce good data rather than quality entertainment. The algorithm once heralded for so much of Netflix’s success and derided for ignoring the human factor certainly feels present here, as any remaining strangeness gets usurped by formula.
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Oct 26, 2017
Season 2 Review:
Season 2’s first three episodes top the suspense, weirdness and fun of last year thanks to sharper writing, more dynamic storytelling, a honed sense of humor (some of it self-referential) and a young cast that has developed its acting skills alongside their adult teeth.
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Jun 2, 2022
Season 4 Review:
The visual effects are more sophisticated and so is the filmmaking; the transitions between scenes, which track four different running story lines, are more elegant and make a sprawling season feel relatively cohesive. Does it feel bloated given those longer run-times? At times, yes. But by episode three, I was again invested in what’s happening in Hawkins (as well as some new locations), and less concerned about the amount of minutes that investment required.
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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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Jul 13, 2016
Season 1 Review:
Stranger Things tries to strike a tricky balance between going fully meta and creating a piece of paranoid, magical, terrifying realism that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the works of Spielberg, Stephen King, John Carpenter, and Wes Craven that it so overtly references. At times, it wobbles in that effort. But it manages to right itself pretty quickly by effectively hooking us into its central mystery and so evocatively conjuring up a not-so-long-ago yesteryear when walkie-talkie conversations were our Snapchat and what’s now considered free-range parenting was just called parenting.
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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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Jul 1, 2022May 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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Radio TimesNov 26, 2025
Season 5 Review:
The Duffer Brothers have had a monumental task in wrapping up this beast of a show and giving each and every character an ending that not only makes sense, but proves satisfactory after nine years. Many showrunners have tried to wrap up stories of this scale in style, and many have failed, and which camp the Duffers ultimately fall into remains to be seen...But, if these first few episodes are anything to go by, we could be looking at a finale for the ages. It might be a bit too soon to tell for sure, but, as we've seen over the past decade, when it comes to this TV phenomenon, stranger things have happened.
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Jul 16, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The real star is Brown, who brings the enigmatic and ill-used Eleven to heart-wrenching life almost without benefit of dialogue. Her face flickers with wonder, woe and menace, often in the same scene, in a way that even cynics who make a point of rooting for horror-movie monsters will not be able to resist.
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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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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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RogerEbert.comJul 1, 2019
Season 3 Review:
It’s such a finely-tuned and executed piece of escapist entertainment that I watched it twice. (Yes, the whole thing.) ... “Stranger Things 3” has absolutely no fat. It's the kind of show that I’d wager almost everyone who starts will find themselves finishing in one or two sittings. The rhythm of “Stranger Things” has never been tighter, but it helps that the cast feels elevated as well.
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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:
To some this may stand as evidence of a series relaxing into its baroque period, and depending on how much love a viewer has for the show, that’s probably fine. Kid fans are going to love it, although the frights have escalated this season. Adults yearning to be seduced by memories of a past injected into our brains by Hollywood will be amply satisfied. .. A summertime treat built for the broadest range of tastes.
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Nov 26, 2025
Season 5 Review:
What lingers is not just nostalgia for the ’80s, but nostalgia for the “Stranger Things” version of that decade. No longer merely a pastiche, Hawkins has become a place both familiar and extraordinary that we’ve happily visited for nearly 10 years...The TV world is going to feel a whole lot stranger without it.
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Oct 23, 2017
Season 2 Review:
There really is a kind of sophisticated genius behind Stranger Things, and while others may try to imitate what the Duffers are doing, it’s harder than it may seem. If anything, the pair have moved the game forward in the second season by making the show scarier without losing the wise innocence of ’80s films as embodied by a bunch of kids, riding around Indiana on bikes in the middle of a real adventure.
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Jul 12, 2016
Season 1 Review:
Stranger Things reminds us of a time marked by a kind of no-strings escapism. And as it does so, we find ourselves yearning for it because the Duffers have made it so irresistibly appealing. There may be other equally great shows to watch this summer, but I guarantee you won’t have more fun watching any of them than you will watching Stranger Things.
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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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Jul 8, 2019
Season 3 Review:
The cutesy signifiers are there—the geometric neon patterns on standard-issue mall wear, a running gag about New Coke—but the rest has gotten sloppy. The dialogue is awash in expressions that weren’t common 10 years ago, let alone 35. ... If there’s nothing as painful as Season 2’s “punk” episode, there’s nothing in Stranger Things’ third season as memorable either.
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Oct 26, 2017
Season 2 Review:
The new season of Stranger Things isn’t as good as the first. The Empire Strikes Back and The Two Towers notwithstanding, sequels hardly ever are. Though, as with so many sequels, what happened before happens again only more so, it is somehow more than the sum of its disparate parts.
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Jul 1, 2022May 23, 2022
Season 4 Review:
To its credit, the lingering pace doesn’t translate to any boring moments. Stranger Things still injects an enthralling backstory into its well-established universe. It’s an indication that the final two episodes of Volume 2 (dropping on July 1), despite its movie length, will only elevate season four.
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Dec 1, 2025
Season 5 Review:
I found the first four episodes largely joyless and grim, right up until a moment that seemed to reset the show, or at least to capture some of the connection and spirit that used to make it so compelling. .... If Stranger Things can locate more of that humanity in its last few episodes, it’ll be much easier to swallow everything else it’s trying to sell us.
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Jun 13, 2022
Season 4 Review:
Amid the show’s ballooning scale and scope, Stranger Things finds an unexpected anchor not in its ensemble of fan favorites but in its latest villain: a supernatural serial killer dubbed Vecna after—what else?—a Dungeons and Dragons character. Vecna resides in the Upside Down, but unlike previous visitors, he’s humanlike, with a voice, a face, and, most chilling of all, a worldview.
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Oct 26, 2017Jul 26, 2016
Season 1 Review:
There’s a higher bar for original stories--even homages--to clear when it comes to incorporating the lessons Hollywood has learned recently about depicting female characters who are as layered as their male counterparts. For all its charms, Stranger Things doesn’t quite meet that standard.
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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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