Even thoughStranger Thingshas officially closed the book on its fifth and final season, the conversation around that ending is still very much alive. Now, Netflix is adding more fuel to the discussion with a new documentary that will pull back the curtain on how the massive finale came together.
The streamer has released the first trailer for One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5, a behind-the-scenes documentary set to debut January 12.
The final season has proven to be one of the most polarizing chapters of the entire series. Some fans embraced Eleven’s ambiguous farewell, while others felt the story left too many loose threads dangling after years of buildup.
Whether viewers loved or hated how it wrapped up, Netflix is betting there’s still plenty of interest in seeing how the final season was made. The documentary promises new interviews, on-set footage, and a closer look at the creative decisions that shaped the end of the show.
In a press release announcing the project, Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer explained why this kind of documentary mattered to them on a personal level:
“Growing up in Durham, North Carolina, we dreamed of becoming filmmakers—but Hollywood felt impossibly far away. Everything changed when we watched the behind-the-scenes documentaries for The Lord of the Rings— on-the-ground films that showed the real nuts and bolts of how a massive production actually gets made. We saw how stressed Peter Jackson was and thought: yep, that’s the dream.”
They went on to say:
“With the decline of physical media, that kind of behind-the-scenes storytelling has largely disappeared. We wanted to bring it back. One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things Season 5—beautifully captured and directed by Martina Radwan—is our attempt to do just that. If you love Stranger Things, or if you’re simply curious how a major Hollywood production comes to life, this one’s for you.”
It’s also no surprise that Netflix is finding ways to keep the franchise alive a little longer. The Duffers are already developing a spin-off, and a making-of documentary is a smart way to re-engage fans who are still debating the ending.
Those debates intensified after the finale dropped on December 31, when the Duffer Brothers did a round of post-release interviews. Some of their answers about unresolved plot points didn’t sit well with viewers, and the reactions online were swift.
During a conversation with Josh Horowitz, Matt Duffer addressed the situation head-on and asked for a bit of patience from fans.
“I really shouldn’t have done any of these postmortem interviews. I am not in a good place. Like, why the hell did we do any of them yesterday is beyond me. I’m, like, fried. I was getting over the flu. So, anyone mad at any answers we gave you yesterday, just cut me some slack.”
Created by the Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things debuted in 2016 and quickly became one of Netflix’s biggest success stories. People lived that the show was a love letter to the 1980s.
Across its run, Stranger Things racked up over 70 awards, including Emmys and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, along with more than 230 nominations overall.
Love the ending or not, the series left a massive footprint on pop culture, and One Last Adventure looks like a final invitation to step inside that world one more time before the lights go out for good.
