After a long wait, the fifth and final season of Stranger Things premiered in late 2025 and became one of the year’s biggest television events. While the return of the show sparked debate among fans about certain plot points and the season overall, it remained incredibly popular. Stranger Things Season 5 quickly achieved record-breaking viewership on Netflix as new episodes were released during the holidays. Now that some time has passed, we have a clearer picture of how the final season stacks up against other great TV shows of all time.
Currently, Stranger Things Season 5 is the fourth most popular TV show ever on Netflix. It has been viewed 120.1 million times and watched for a total of 1.249 billion hours. This puts it ahead of Season 2 of Wednesday, which received 119.3 million views. While these numbers are fantastic for Stranger Things, it’s unlikely to break the overall viewing record on Netflix.
Stranger Things Will Never Beat Wednesday Season 1’s Netflix Record
Netflix’s latest viewing data shows that while Stranger Things Season 5 was initially the second most popular show in the second half of 2025, it quickly became number one. It overtook Wednesday Season 2 because of when each show was released. Wednesday debuted in the summer, while Stranger Things didn’t premiere until Thanksgiving, with the final episode becoming available on New Year’s Eve. Therefore, it’s not surprising that Stranger Things didn’t reach the top spot until a few weeks into 2026.
Although the newest season of Stranger Things was more popular than the second season of Wednesday, it probably won’t surpass Wednesday‘s record-breaking first season. Season 1 of Wednesday remains Netflix’s most-watched show ever, with an impressive 252.1 million views and 1.718 billion hours watched. Currently, Stranger Things 5 is 132 million views behind Wednesday Season 2. Considering Netflix calculates viewership based on the first 91 days of a show’s release, and Stranger Things Season 5 has only been out for 60 days, it has just 31 days left to close the gap. To match Wednesday Season 1, it would need to average around 4.25 million views each day.
Okay, so the initial frenzy around Stranger Things Season 5 has definitely started to calm down – it’s been out for a while now, and that’s just how things go. It was huge when it first dropped, everyone wanted to talk about it and be ‘in the know,’ but that buzz is naturally fading. While I don’t expect viewership to plummet, the conversation’s shifted, especially with fans having pretty strong (and divided) opinions. It’s still popular, for sure, but I don’t think it’s going to reach the same heights as something like Wednesday Season 2 did.
Even though Wednesday is currently very popular, Netflix is understandably looking to expand the Stranger Things universe with new shows, including an animated series called Stranger Things: Tales from ’85. Stranger Things has been a huge success for Netflix since it debuted in 2016, consistently attracting a large audience (Season 4 is the third most popular show ever on the platform). It will be fascinating to see if these spinoffs can achieve similar levels of viewership.
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2026-01-25 17:10