Netflix’s Stranger Things continues to cement its status as one of the platform’s biggest global hits, with the series posting record-breaking viewership figures across its five-season run.
The show has amassed more than 1.2 billion views for Seasons one to four, the highest for any Netflix title to date, while Season five Volume 1 has drawn 102.6 million views worldwide within its first four weeks, keeping all five seasons in Netflix’s global Top 10.
Brett Gelman and Maya Hawke behind the scenes of Stranger Things. (Credit: Atsushi Nishijima/Netflix © 2024)
Rewatched
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 four: When Nancy falls into a trance/possession by Vecna (S4E7, 1:15:00) 2) Season three: When Dustin and Suzie sing “Never Ending Story” duet (S3E8, 35:40).
Season five, 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 one to four 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.
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 five, 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 17.5 million downloads of Master of Puppets in one week after it was featured in Season four.
It’s not just music. Between the debuts of Season one in 2016 and Season four in 2022, the Dungeons & Dragons universe, which is a favourite of Eddie Munson and the Hellfire Club, saw a meteoric growth of 673%.
Chip’s Ahoy!’s Season five campaign highlighting their brand new Stranger Things-inspired cookie earned an impressive 11 billion impressions and Nike’s drop of Stranger Things-inspired Dunk Low sneakers sold out within four minutes on Stranger Things Day this year.
To date, over 3.16 million copies of Stranger Things books, comics, and other publishing projects have been sold in the US alone since Season one.
Marketing
Stranger Things: The Experience has had two billion social impressions so far, with over 850,000 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.
Additionally, Netflix has demonstrated an ability to break out new talent. 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 five characters like Jake Connelly (Derek) from Season five gain a massive following of fans across social media with Instagram followers nearing the one million mark.
Stranger Things five became Netflix’s largest pre-launch marketing campaign with 5.75 billion earned global social impressions. Their Rewatch Campaign generated 1.3 billion earned global social impressions during the month of October alone.
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