‘Stranger Things 5’ Turns Netflix Upside Down With Record-Breaking Premiere Week
By
Katie Campione
December 2, 2025 12:00pm
EXCLUSIVE: Stranger Things 5 is off to a monstrous start with the biggest premiere week ever for an English-language series on
Netflix.
The first four episodes, which debuted on November 26, catapulted the latest season of the
Duffer Brothers‘ supernatural drama to No. 1 on the weekly TV rankings with
59.6M global views.

That bests the premiere-week record previously held by
Wednesday Season 1, which accumulated
roughly 56M views in its first four days. The second season of
Squid Game still holds the
all-time premiere-week record with 68M views.
It is worth noting that
Stranger Things 5 debuted on Wednesday night (5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET), as opposed to Thursday at midnight eastern as with the other shows mentioned above, so it did have a few more hours to rack up views. It’s hard to say how much this might have impacted the totals, though considering
Stranger Things 5 and
Wednesday are only a few million views apart, it could’ve made the difference.
In addition to the latest season, all four previous seasons of
Stranger Things entered the weekly Top 10, which is a first for Netflix. The first season was at No. 3 (8.9 million views), Season 4 at No. 5 (6.1 million views), Season 2 at No. 6 (5.6 million views), and Season 3 at No. 8 (4.6 million views). The streamer says that, since Season 1 debuted in 2016,
Stranger Things has tallied 1.2B combined views.
“We are completely overwhelmed by the fan response to this season. It means the world to us, and we know it means just as much to the thousands of cast and crew who poured their blood, sweat, and tears into bringing this story to life,” Matt and
Ross Duffer said in a statement to Deadline. “We’d like to give a special shout-out to all the fans who kept the flame alive during the long lead-up to release — through word of mouth, on social media, in fan art, rewatches, and in the thousands of unforgettable moments we and the cast have shared with you around the world. Your passion didn’t just inspire us; it helped bring a new generation of fans into the world of
Stranger Things.“
Will Stranger Things 5 Make the Most Popular List?
This debut performance primes
Stranger Things 5 to easily make it onto Netflix’s all time most popular list.
The Night Agent and
Fool Me Once are currently tied with 98.2M views in ninth and tenth place, respectively.
Since there are four new episodes on the way at the end of the month, it seems safe to say that
Stranger Things 5 will blow right past these — and likely the entire bottom half of the Top 10 as it currently stands.
Wednesday still holds onto first place with 252M views in its 91-day premiere window.
Whether the final season of
Stranger Things has enough juice to finally take that title after three years remains to be seen, though it is entirely possible. For split releases, the 91-day premiere window resets with the release of each volume, meaning that the series has until 91 days post-finale to solidify its place on the all-time rankings.
The response to
Stranger Things 5 is all the more impressive given its been more than three years since any new episodes of the show were released. A lengthy hiatus such as that generally results in waning audience interest. The fact that, in this case, it did not pretty firmly cements the series’ cultural cache.
Stranger Things 5 had a record-breaking premiere week on Netflix. Read more about how the streamer pulled it off.
deadline.com