STRANGER THINGS: SEASON 5. (Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler in Stranger Things: Season 5. Cr. COURTESY OF NETFLIX © 2025
Stranger Things is on the all-time most-watched list! Season 5 is going to be a monster hit, but we won’t know its final ranking on the Netflix top 10s until early April 2026.
According to a Netflix press release, the launch of Stranger Things S5 volume 3 also contributed to Netflix’s “most views ever on a New Year’s Day,” setting two records for the season, given that it also helped make Christmas Day the most-watched ever.
Here’s a complete recap of the six weeks Stranger Things has featured in the top 10s so far:
| Week in Top 10 | Week Period | Hours Viewed | Views / CVE | Weekly Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nov 23 to Nov 30, 2025 | 284,200,000 (New) | 59,600,000 | 1 |
| 2 | Nov 30 to Dec 7, 2025 | 112,700,000 (-60%) | 23,600,000 | 1 |
| 3 | Dec 7 to Dec 14, 2025 | 53,200,000 (-53%) | 11,200,000 | 3 |
| 4 | Dec 14 to Dec 21, 2025 | 38,900,000 (-27%) | 8,200,000 | 4 |
| 5 | Dec 21 to Dec 28, 2025 | 284,800,000 (+632%) | 34,500,000 | 1 |
| 6 | Dec 28 to Jan 4, 2026 | 325,600,000 (+14%) | 31,300,000 | 1 |
Important to note in this table that views decline because of the expanded runtime of each new volume release.
Its performance thus far has knocked Fool Me Once out of the Netflix top 10 and into #9, and it’s got a long way to go. As of week 6, the series has pulled in over a billion hours watched globally (1,099,500,000), which equates to 105.7M views.
As a reminder on the views it’ll need to get to topple Stranger Things season 4, Adolescence, and Wednesday S1:
- Wednesday S1: 252.10M views
- Adolescence: 142.6M views
- Stranger Things 4: 140.7M views
Our prediction? It’s definitely on track to topple Wednesday season 2, but we’re a bit far out to know whether it’s going to take out the other three. We’ll have some more predictions for you in the coming weeks.
I tapped our numbers guru, Frederic (Netflix and Chiffres), for a live look at the race for third spot on the list. At the moment, S5 is tracking above S4, but we need to wait a few weeks to see how the trajectory settles.
How does Netflix’s all-time top 10 work for Stranger Things S5?
This has caused some confusion on how views and hours are actually calculated when seasons are split, so here’s a bit of an explainer.
The overall top 10 list is calculated for the first 91 days of release. For the Stranger Things split season, that means:
- Taking Volume 1 viewing hours from November 26th to February 25th and adding to a pot
- Taking Volume 2 viewing hours from December 25th to March 26th, and also adding to a pot
- Finally, putting Volume 3 viewing hours from December 31st to April 1st into the pot of overall viewing hours
Then, taking that end group of hours watched and dividing by the runtime of all three seasons, in this case, Netflix measures it at 10 hours and 24 minutes. That means we won’t know the final top 10 figure until April 1st, 2026, or rather April 3rd, when Netflix drops its top 10 data.
Illustration by What’s on Netflix
Before we leave you, here’s a look at the pure hours chart comparing seasons 4 and 5 so far:
Note: An earlier version of this article said it’d be May 2026 when we learn of the final number. This has been corrected.
We’ve got more analysis from the Netflix top 10s coming up in a bit, so stay tuned to our Netflix top 10 reports page for the latest.
Rating: TV-MA
