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It’s hard to imagine Stranger Things Season 5 scaling back after the epic finale for Stranger Things Season 4, but that’s what the creators of the show, Ross and Matt Duffer, plan to do. Here’s what we know regarding the run time of Stranger Things Season 5.

'Stranger Things' Season 5 will have shorter episodes than 'Stranger Things' Season 4. In this production still, the main characters stand on a hillside as the Upside Down begins to take over Hawkins.
Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler, Charlie Heaton as Jonathan Byers, Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler, Noah Schnapp as Will Byers, David Harbour as Jim Hopper, Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers, and Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven | Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2022

‘Stranger Things’ Season 5 will be shorter than season 4

If you binge-watched all of Stranger Things Season 4 in one sitting, that means you didn’t leave your couch for approximately 782 minutes. The season finale alone ran a whopping two hours and nineteen minutes. Plus, not a single episode in all of Stranger Things Season 4 had a runtime of less than one hour. It looks like the Duffers plan for shorter episodes for Stranger Things Season 5. However, it’s not simply for the sake of having shorter episodes.

Why ‘Stranger Things’ Season 5 will be shorter 

The Duffer Brothers recently appeared on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast hosted by Josh Horowitz, and he had several questions regarding Stranger Things Season 5. When asked about the length of the next season, Matt Duffer explained, “We’re more likely to do what we did here, which is to just have a two and a half hour episode.”

He also touched on why season four’s episodes were ultimately so long, “The only reason we don’t expect to be as long is because typically — or this season, if you look at it, it’s almost a two-hour ramp up before our kids really get drawn into a supernatural mystery. You get to know them, you get to see them in their lives, they’re struggling with adapting to high school and so forth. Steve’s trying to find a date, all of that. None of that is obviously going to be occurring in the first two episodes. For the first time ever, we don’t wrap things up at the end of four.”

In case all of that information wasn’t enough to set our nerves on edge for our favorite kids in Hawkins, Matt added, “It’s going to be moving fast.” However, he clarified that he and his brother weren’t sure the season was “going to be moving 100 miles per hour.”

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‘Stranger Things’ Season 5 finale will be about two and a half hours

For those fans who enjoyed the extra-long runtimes of Stranger Things Season 4, don’t get too upset. The Duffers compared the finale of Stranger Things Season 5 to the ending of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy conclusion, Return of the King.

“I’m sure the wrap-up will be a lot longer,” Matt said. “It’s going to be Return of the King-ish with, like, eight endings.”

We can’t imagine fans would say no to any extra screentime for the show’s final season. It seems as though it will be nonstop as soon as they hit play.

Matt Duffer told Horowitz, “Characters are already going to be in action, they’re already going to have a goal and a drive, and I think that’s going to carve out at least a couple hours and make this season feel really different.”

Stranger Things Season 4 is currently streaming on Netflix.

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