Every Season Of Stranger Things, Ranked

Contains spoilers for "Stranger Things" Season 5, Episode 8 — "Chapter Eight: The Rightside Up"

"Stranger Things" has finally concluded after nearly a decade. The military occupation of Hawkins, Indiana is over, and the characters are finally free to explore the world outside — or, in the case of Steve Harrington (Joe Keery), settle down and hold down the fort in the old home town. 

With the supersized series finale closing out the story, viewers can finally focus on the Duffer Brothers' "Stranger Things" narrative as a whole. As the show's stellar reviews show, there are no true weak links among its five seasons, to the point that even the worst of them sits at a solid 85% on Rotten Tomatoes. Still, there are some fairly significant differences in the way the various chapters of the show handle the story, and what their importance in the grand scheme of things is. Because of this, it's time to take a look at all five seasons of "Stranger Things" and rank them from worst to best. 

"Stranger Things" Season 5 goes big — perhaps a little bigger than it should have. Released in three parts that all try to find something to do for everyone in the sprawling main cast, the show's final season attempts to provide answers for every question that it has posited in the first four seasons — while introducing even more mysteries, of course. The season's biggest additions to the main cast are Nell Fisher's Holly Wheeler and Linda Hamilton's Dr. Kay. Perhaps surprisingly, Hamilton's character ends up lacking substance, while Holly becomes a scene-stealer whose "A Wrinkle in Time"-inspired predicament brings the show some of that welcome Season 1 magic. 

It's up to the viewer how well the decisions made in Season 5 work, and whether the big truths behind the Upside Down and the Mind Flayer hit as hard as intended. It's also open to interpretation (as well as the viewer's investment in the characters) just how well the decision to devote the back half of the finale to an assortment of character endings works out. The show also decides to leave many things tactically unexplained: Why does the military just leave the characters alone? What happened to characters the series finale forgot about, like Murray Bauman (Brett Gelman) or Vickie Dunne (Amybeth McNulty)? Were the major character deaths in the "Stranger Things" series finale the right calls? 

History (and fans) will no doubt find an answer to those questions eventually. Right now, however, the final season of the show seems a bit too scattershot to surpass any of the four that came before it. 

Sandwiched between two great seasons and the large-scale leap of Season 4, "Stranger Things" Season 3 is in a tough spot where it has to raise the stakes but can't (or won't) color too far outside the lines just yet. As such, the season is effectively an amped-up highlights reel of the first two seasons. Once again, a major character gets possessed. Once again, the protagonists are stalked by an abomination from another world. Once again, Hawkins hides an underbelly of, well, stranger things — this time, it's Russian spies and physical aspects of the Mind Flayer. Much of it is interesting, but it simply doesn't break new ground the way the show usually does.

There's still plenty to like about the season, though. For instance, the Starcourt Mall is arguably the most effective normal-world set that "Stranger Things" has in its arsenal, and Steve Harrington's prickly but caring friendship with Robin Buckley (Maya Hawke) is a consistent highlight. Still, in the grand scheme of things, the season functions as a transitional period between the first two seasons and the two endgame seasons that center on the threat of Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), which can't help but hurt its place in the ranking.

Poor Bob Newby (Sean Astin) never deserved "Stranger Things" Season 2, but the rest of us absolutely did. The sophomore season manages to continue the themes of Season 1 perfectly, while still increasing the stakes in every conceivable way. Our first, shadowy glimpses of the Mind Flayer are still arguably the most chilling ones the show has ever given us. The giant, spidery entity haunting Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) and pulling the strings that lead up to the ending's Demodog invasion makes for a genuinely chilling and incomprehensible antagonist. 

Speaking of antagonists, Season 2 also introduces us to the ominous Billy Hargrove (Dacre Montgomery), who picks up the "villainous youngster" baton after Steve Harrington's graduation into a full-time protagonist. However, his sister, Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink), proves to be the more important sibling and promptly establishes herself as a key player in the main cast. The season also introduces important players like Murray Bauman (Brett Gelman) and Kali Prasad (Linnea Berthelsen), expanding the cast organically without feeling too bloated. 

Combine all this with a story arc that can almost match the first season, and the fact that "Stranger Things" Season 2 holds the third place on the list is nothing to be ashamed about. It's a great season, but two others just managed to be even greater. 

The success of "Stranger Things" Season 4 hinges on the two major new characters it brings aboard, and fortunately, both knock it out of the park. The metal-minded Hellfire Club leader Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn) is possibly the most pitch-perfect blend of coolness and tragedy that the show has ever managed to introduce, and Quinn's soulful, inherently likable take on the role is such a masterpiece of acting that it's no wonder the Marvel Cinematic Universe snatched the guy up soon after the season. Meanwhile, Jamie Campbell Bower delivers an equally commanding but very different turn as Henry "Vecna" Creel, the diabolical psychokinetic who becomes the Upside Down's monstrous big shot after meeting his match in Eleven.

The inclusion of these two newcomers brings depth to a season that might otherwise have risked spreading itself too thin between its various locations, flashbacks, and storylines. Vecna's overarching threat raises the stakes beyond anything we've seen so far and provides the show with some of its most amazing moments — the fantastic way Season 4 uses Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" comes to mind. Meanwhile, Eddie's raw nerve of a storyline is perhaps the show's greatest one-season tragedy arc, and his ultimate, guitar-shredding sacrifice to the tune of Metallica's "Master of Puppets" seems destined to remain one of the greatest "Stranger Things" scenes in history. 

The season can't consistently sustain tension on every single playing field — for instance, the Russian storyline often seems out of place with the rest of the action. Yet, as a whole, "Stranger Things" Season 4 manages to go bigger than ever before while still retaining most of the show's considerable charm. 

From the very first Dungeons and Dragons game in the series premiere, "Stranger Things" came out of the gate strong and sucked nostalgia-hungry viewers in with its clever spins on the finest 1980s sci-fi, fantasy, and horror tropes. The sprawling cast of main characters feels fresh, and the show gives virtually everyone ample opportunities to shine. This is a show where a vanished child will communicate through a mysterious nether realm, a washed-up sheriff turns out to be a bona fide 1980s action hero, and the obligatory group of cute kids are the only ones who can save the day. All of this is topped by the Duffer Brothers' ability to remix and repurpose these themes to fit modern sensibilities: the inevitable payoffs to every single 1980s trope the show can muster feel genuinely rewarding and even touching.  

Perhaps even more importantly, all that old school coolness is supplemented by the fact that Season 1 isn't afraid to be scary when the situation calls for it. The Demogorgon is still arguably the finest monster design the show has ever introduced. Death, decay, and destruction abound in ways that make it very evident that the show means business. The terrifying fate of Barb (Shannon Purser) alone had fans creating viral hashtags to do the character justice. 

"Stranger Things" did things well for many seasons. However, it could never quite recapture the magic, whimsy, and pit-of-the-stomach terror that Season 1 gave us.