Stranger Things (2016)
Stranger Things is a 2016 action & adventure series created by Ross Duffer and Matt Duffer. It stars Winona Ryder, David Harbour and Millie Bobby Brown.
In 1983 Indiana, a boy named Will vanishes on his bike ride home, and the search pulls in his three best friends, his frantic mother, the town sheriff, and a runaway girl with a shaved head and powers she barely controls. The Duffer Brothers build the show out of everything they loved as kids, Spielberg wonder, Stephen King dread, Dungeons and Dragons, and set it against a government lab and a parallel world bleeding into ours. It runs on friendship and nostalgia in equal measure. The kids carry it.
Quick answers
What is Stranger Things about?
In 1983 Indiana, a boy named Will vanishes on his bike ride home, and the search pulls in his three best friends, his frantic mother, the town sheriff, and a runaway girl with a shaved head and powers she barely controls. The Duffer Brothers build the show out of everything they loved as kids, Spielberg wonder, Stephen King dread, Dungeons and Dragons, and set it against a government lab and a parallel world bleeding into ours. It runs on friendship and nostalgia in equal measure. The kids carry it.
When was Stranger Things released?
Stranger Things was released on 15 July 2016.
How many episodes does Stranger Things have?
Stranger Things has 42 episodes across 5 seasons.
Who made Stranger Things?
Stranger Things was created by Ross Duffer, Matt Duffer and Michael Stein.
Where can I watch Stranger Things?
Stranger Things is available on Netflix.
Where to watch Stranger Things
Stream: Netflix
Cast
- Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers
- David Harbour as Jim Hopper
- Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven / Jane Hopper
- Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler
- Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson
- Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair
- Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler
- Charlie Heaton as Jonathan Byers
- Joe Keery as Steve Harrington
- Noah Schnapp as Will Byers
- Cara Buono as Karen Wheeler
- Sadie Sink as Max Mayfield
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A few thoughts on Stranger Things
The show is a love letter to eighties genre film. It shares its kids-versus-a-lurking-evil heart, and Life Is Strange gives you the same small-town supernatural unease to play through.
Kids on bikes fighting the monster in their own town
Stranger Things puts a pack of middle-schoolers on bikes against something that crawled out of a lab, and their walkie-talkies matter more than any adult in the room. These picks also hand the flashlight to kids and teenagers, sending them after creatures the grown-ups refuse to see, from monster-hunting babysitters to small-town horrors with teeth.
Small-town cosmic horror that creeps in slowly
Stranger Things borrows Stephen King's trick of letting dread seep through an ordinary town before anything monstrous shows its face. These follow the same slow build, a quiet place where something wrong leaks in at the edges, from a sealed community nobody can leave to a spreading madness you catch just by listening.
Horror books and comics to read after the binge
Stranger Things wears its paperback-horror roots openly, so the page is the natural next stop. These are creepy small-town and kids-in-peril reads, including a comic about a girl who hunts the things eating a town's children and novels where childhood and nightmare share the same street.
Big serialized adventures with a deep ensemble to binge next
Stranger Things rewards viewers who commit to a long, world-building run with a wide cast to grow attached to. These series ask for the same, sprawling ensembles and stakes that climb every season, whether the threat is a demon, a corrupt superhero, or a dragon-riding house.