'Stranger Things' By the Numbers: How the Global Phenomenon Shaped Culture

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Stranger Things By the Numbers: How the Global Phenomenon Shaped Culture

From left to right: Priah Ferguson, Sadie Sink, Cara Buono, Linda Hamilton, Noah Schnapp, Caleb McLaughlin, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Shawn Levy, Millie Bobby Brown, Matt Duffer, Nell Fisher, Ross Duffer, Brett Gelman, Maya Hawke, Joe Keery, Gaten Matarazzo, Amybeth McNulty, Winona Ryder, Natalia Dyer, Jamie Campbell Bower, Charlie Heaton, Jake Connelly, and Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos at the Stranger Things 5 world premiere. (Credit: Matt Sayles / Netflix)

Entertainment

23 December 2025

Global

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With Stranger Things in its fifth and final season, we wanted to celebrate the show as one of Netflix's most beloved franchises, from record-breaking viewership and world expansion to its cultural and economic impact. Read on for some exciting fun facts by the numbers.

All Eyes on Hawkins

Across 5 seasons, 42 episodes, and over 2,500 minutes, Stranger Things built a world audiences kept coming back to. Seasons 1-4 have garnered more than 1.2B views to date, the most views for any Netflix show. In just four weeks, Season 5 Vol. 1 has already reached 102.6M views globally and all five seasons still remain in the Top 10 this week.

Fans have obsessed over countless iconic moments across all seasons, but two were the most popular with members: The most rewatched scenes in all of Stranger Things are: 1) Season 4: When Nancy falls into a trance/possession by Vecna (S4E7, 1:15:00) 2) Season 3: When Dustin and Suzie sing Never Ending Story duet (S3E8, 35:40).

Season 5, Vol. 1's premiere week was the biggest in the history of Netflix for an English language show, amassing 59.6M views, hitting #1 in 90 countries and propelling Seasons 1-4 back into the Top 10 - marking the first time an English language Netflix show has had five seasons in the Top 10. Since the debut of the Netflix Top 10 in 2021, Stranger Things has made the Global Top 10 list 78 times and reached the Top 10 in all 93 countries tracked.

Cultural Impact That Leaves a Lasting Impression

Sadie Sink as Max Mayfield in Stranger Things 4. (Courtesy of Netflix 2022)

As a result of the show's massive popularity, each season has pierced the culture, creating new trends and even bringing back some from decades past.

Music is a supporting character in the series and it's how many audiences first discovered, or rediscovered, sounds from the 80s. That's been on full display with the release of Season 5, Vol. 1, which drew several classics from years past back into the zeitgeist not only around the world, but also with Gen Z.

According to Spotify, Diana Ross' Upside Down (1980) saw a 1,250% increase in global Gen Z streams; Tiffany's I Think We're Alone Now (1987) experienced an increase of 880% in global Gen Z streams; Mr. Sandman by The Chordettes (1954) had a spike of 625% in global streams; while ABBA's Fernando (1976) saw a surge of 335% in global streams and 645% across Gen Z specifically. In fact, Spotify reports that 205,000 Stranger Things-themed playlists have been created globally since Season 1.

Last season, Max Mayfield's favorite song, Running Up That Hill (1985) by Kate Bush, entered the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time in its 38-year history. Additionally, Metallica's Master of Puppets (1986) climbed into the UK Top 10 for the first time and drove 17.5M downloads of Master of Puppets in one week after it was featured in Season 4.

It's not just music. Between the debuts of Season 1 in 2016 and Season 4 in 2022, the Dungeons & Dragons universe, which is a favorite of Eddie Munson and the Hellfire Club, saw a meteoric growth of 673%.

Chip's Ahoy!'s Season 5 campaign highlighting their brand new Stranger Things-inspired cookie earned an impressive 11B impressions and Nike's drop of Stranger Things-inspired Dunk Low sneakers sold out within 4 minutes on Stranger Things Day this year.

To date, over 3.16M copies of Stranger Things books, comics, and other publishing projects have been sold in the US alone since Season 1.

Stranger Things: The Experience has had 2B social impressions so far, with over 850K tickets sold across cities like Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, London, Paris, Brazil and Australia since it launched in 2022. Tickets are now on sale for Abu Dhabi and Mexico City locations.

On the awards front, Stranger Things has won over 70 awards from over 230 nominations worldwide including Emmys for Outstanding Casting in a Drama Series and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. The prequel play, Stranger Things: The First Shadow, also earned top honors when it took the stage in London in 2023 and launched on Broadway earlier this year. To date, the play has won four Tony Awards, two Olivier Awards, and two UK Critics' Circle Theatre Awards.

Additionally, Netflix has demonstrated our ability to break out new talent in a way no other studio or network can. Millie Bobby Brown launched her career with Stranger Things and has since starred in multiple Netflix projects like The Electric State, Damsel, which is Netflix's 10th Most Popular English movie of all time, and the Enola Holmes franchise, which returns for a third film next year. Across the cast, we've seen Instagram followings soar: Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Caleb McLaughlin and Gaten Matarazzo went from the thousands to the tens of millions. We're even seeing new Season 5 characters like Jake Connelly (Derek) from Season 5 gain a massive following of fans across social media with Instagram followers nearing the 1M mark.

Fans Turn the World Upside Down

Noah Schnapp poses with fans at the Tokyo fan event for Stranger Things 5. (Courtesy of Netflix)

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