Stranger Things is wrapping up its run on Netflix with a fifth and final season spread across three different drops — but not every solid member is returning.
The hit series, which debuted in 2016, focuses on a fictional town where a series of supernatural events happen and cause mystery and mayhem. Over the course of 5 seasons, Stranger Things has catapulted its solid 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 finish the series after yet another chapter in Hawkins, Indiana.
“Seven years ago, we planned out the entire story arc for Stranger Things,” they detailed in an open letter in February 2022. “On the time, we predicted the story would last 4 to 5 seasons. It proved too large to inform in 4 but — as you’ll see for yourselves — we are actually hurtling toward our finale. Season 4 might be the penultimate season; season 5 might be the last.”
Later that 12 months, the Duffer Brothers opened up about their vision for the ultimate episodes and addressed the season 4 episode split.
“The unique plan was to release it abruptly again. But as we began turning over episodes, everyone began to feel the season was too big to be released in a single batch — at nearly 13 hours, it is actually more two seasons than one,” they told Variety in May 2022 after Volume 1 dropped the primary seven episodes. “Episode 7 is as big as any season finale we’ve ever had, so it made sense to everyone involved to separate the season there. Episode 7 really serves as the tip 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 solid members have confirmed they’re returning — and who won’t be back:
Winona Ryder
Ryder’s Joyce has been featured within the season 5 trailer and stills.
David Harbour
David Harbour Courtesy of Netflix
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 pair more months to coach,” he said on the Middle East Film & Comic Con in March 2023. “I did a whole lot of training for season 4. He [Hopper] was in a really specific position, that Russian prison. It was about making him a special guy and form of shedding a layer of himself physically, mentally, and emotionally. But now he’s back on the town, he’s back in America where they’ve cheeseburgers, so he might be well-fed.”
Millie Bobby Brown
Brown admitted in March 2023 she was “very ready” to maneuver on from Stranger Things, but Eleven will appear.
“I’m definitely able to wrap up. I feel like there’s a whole lot of the story that’s been told now,” she explained to Seventeen. “It’s been in our lives for a really very long time. But I’m very able to say goodbye to this chapter of my life, and open latest ones up. I’m capable of create stories myself which can be vital to me and deal with the larger picture. But I’m really grateful [for the show].”
Finn Wolfhard
Wolfhard, who plays Mike, exclusively told Us Weekly that he was mourning the tip of the show after returning for season 5. He called the ultimate season “bittersweet, bitter after which sweet.”
Gaten Matarazzo
“There’s an excitement there because you usually need to wrap it up and you need to see how these characters are going to finally develop one last time, and the way they’re going to complete their journeys,” Matarazzo said on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in March 2023, noting that the experience was “bittersweet” as well. “But additionally, there’s a deep fear that’s been like — not only has it been amazing, but it surely’s been, like, pretty great job security.”
Matarazzo said he was looking forward to Dustin’s final arc. “I feel [the story is] in the perfect hands it might be,” he explained. “Matt and Ross know these characters higher than I feel we’d. It’s really interesting ’cause they trust us all very much to make our own decisions and go concerning the scenes the best way we’ve all the time instinctually desired to.”
Caleb McLaughlin
McLaughlin is reprising his role as Lucas after ending season 4 on a dramatic note.
Noah Schnapp
“There will certainly be one other center point for Will in season 5 and I feel it’s really exciting and I’m definitely so excited to see what they’ve in store,” Schnapp exclusively told Us in January 2023. “They won’t tell me specifics, but they were like, ‘You only wait. You might be very blissful and excited. So sit tight.’”
He continued: “I feel the story opened and began with Will, and I feel ending it with him and circling back on that could be 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 capability.
Natalia Dyer
“I actually have little doubt the larger, scarier, action-y plot might 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 actually am looking forward to hopefully having a few of those nice character moments of those people connecting and showing that they care about one another. That’s the guts of what we wish to do. I consider that’s a part of the appeal of the show — the guts.”
Charlie Heaton
Heaton, who plays Jonathan, is confirmed to be a part of the season 5 solid 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 prefer it’s time” to wrap up the series, it “won’t be easy” to see all of it come to an end.
“I owe my whole profession to being on that show and all of the opportunities that I had since are due to that show,” he told WWD on the time while filming. “So it’s very convoluted. There’s a way of relief, there’s a way of sadness. I suppose my goal is to only really soak it up as much as I can while we’re doing it, and never take any of it as a right since it’s been a tremendous ride with such great people. After which once it’s done, move forward and take a look at to only hold on to the enjoyment that we had once we were making it.”
Keery added that “every little thing has a starting and the center and an end” so it should be “it’ll be nice to have the tip of [Stranger Things] too.”
Maya Hawke
After returning to set as Robin, Hawke said it was “already beginning to be heartbreaking,” telling Entertainment Tonight in June 2024, “It’s the tip of a extremely long journey. Longer for a few of my castmates, even, than for me. So it’s really sentimental. But as a late addition to the solid member, I feel prefer it’s my job to be here to facilitate their feelings and just be grateful and excited to have been a component of it in any respect.”
Bringing a job to life. Stranger Things puts a whole lot of work into making viewers feel like they’ve been transported to a fictional town in Indiana in the course of the ’80s — which incorporates transforming their actors into completely different people. The Netflix series, which debuted in 2016, centers around supernatural events that happen in […]
Eduardo Franco
Franco, who joined the solid in season 5 as Jonathan’s best friend Argyle, revealed during a January 2024 appearance on the Steve Varley show that he wouldn’t be returning for the ultimate season.
When host Steve Varley shared that fans were in a “panic” after a solid photo was released with Franco missing, the actor said he appreciates that there’s “some concern” but he “never got a phone call” about reprising the role.
“So I feel, yeah, I feel 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 might be blissful with how Stranger Things involves an end, saying, “The fans are going to like it.”
Priah Ferguson
Ferguson, who plays Erica Sinclair, reflected on how the ultimate season of Stranger Things is all about wrapping loose story lines up. “I definitely need to see closure for the entire series. Hopefully at the tip of season 5, I need to see closure and the entire situation being resolved,” she told Us in May 2022. “I don’t want it to finish on a really traumatic situation just like the past seasons have. I need 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 solid filming the ultimate 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 really like that Joe Quinn is toying with people! But no, he’s dead.”