NetflixAs Stranger Things morphed from an upstart retro sci-fi series into a pop culture empire that includes an animated series and a Broadway show, its episodes grew longer and longer. Season 4 may have come out three years ago, but you probably remember some of its “episodes” ballooning to two-and-a-half hours long.With the show’s fifth and final season now just a little more than a month away, fans have speculated that its episodes will be similarly huge, and a wild rumor even suggested that every single episode would be movie-length. Thankfully, a showrunner has set the record straight and revealed the true, much more manageable runtimes for the final season’s first installment. Puck recently claimed that every episode of Stranger Things Season 5 would be between 90 and 120 minutes, meaning that the first four episodes, set to release on November 26, would clock in at a minimum of six hours. This caused something of an uproar; some fans decried the format, saying that wasn’t even television anymore, while others celebrated the fact that we would essentially get two seasons’ worth of content to make up for a three-year absence. Regardless of where you landed, the rumor was just debunked by showrunner Ross Duffer. He posted an Instagram showing the first four episodes posted on Netflix, where the runtimes ranged between 54 and 83 minutes. That’s not short, but it’s not an exhausting epic either. Whether Episodes 5 through 7, which premiere on Christmas Day, will be longer remains to be seen, and it seems reasonable to assume that the series finale, which drops by itself on New Year’s Eve, will be a movie-length event. But at least the entirety of Season 5 won’t just be a film series in disguise. Stranger Things hasn’t completely forgotten its roots as a TV show, and while that may be a disappointment to fans looking forward to 16 hours of content, at least now we know exactly how much time to block off on the 26th. Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 1 premieres November 26, 2025, on Netflix.