Stranger Things’ fifth season premiere set a new viewership benchmark for Netflix.
Within five days of its streaming debut, the season registered 59.6 million total views. This marks the highest first-week viewership for any English-language series on Netflix, ranking third globally, with only the second and third seasons of the Korean drama Squid Game achieving higher numbers. The new season’s debut viewership is a substantial increase over Season 4, which premiered in 2022 with 287 million hours watched-an amount Netflix now calculates as roughly 22 million views.
Stranger Things Season 5 Premiere Sees 171% Increase
Consequently, the fifth season’s opening saw a growth of approximately 171%; however, this figure should be considered alongside the fact that Season 5 was tallied over five days, compared to Season 4’s three-day measurement period. Even with the season having just premiered, this marks the second viewership record achieved by the fifth installment. Driven by the massive anticipation for the newest release last week, every previous installment of Stranger Things entered the Netflix Top 10 list, setting a new record as the first series ever to feature four separate seasons simultaneously on the chart.
Setting a new unprecedented record during the November 24th to 30th reporting period, the series became the first to have five separate seasons simultaneously featured on the chart: Season 5 claimed the top position (No. 1), followed by Season 1 at third place (8.9 million views), Season 4 in fifth place (6.1 million), Season 2 in sixth (5.6 million), and Season 3 ranking eighth (4.6 million views). Netflix launched just four episodes of Season 5 in the past week; the remaining release schedule includes three episodes debuting on Christmas Day, followed by the series finale on New Year’s Eve. Given the staggered release, it is anticipated that Stranger Things will stay on the Top 10 chart for an extended period.
Will Season 5 Rank Among the Most Popular English TV Shows of All Time?
Furthermore, Season 5 is nearly certain to join the platform’s list of most popular English-language TV titles of all time, where Season 4 currently holds the No. 3 spot with 140.7 million views recorded over its first 91 days. Among other significant debuts this week, Kevin Hart’s comedy special Acting My Age launched at the second position on the TV chart with 9.2 million views, while the holiday film Jingle Bell Heist took the top spot on the movie chart, accumulating 19.3 million views. That’s a great idea. This week’s Netflix Global Top 10 (Nov 24–30, 2025) is broken down by category, with official view counts listed in millions.