Stranger Things is an American sci-fi television series created by the Duffer Brothers. It was first released as a Netflix original series on July 15, 2016. The show takes place in the 1980s, with the central focus being the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana. The first season, set in November 1983, follows numerous groups of characters as they separately investigate the disappearance of Will Byers. The subsequent second and third seasons expand the narrative scope, exploring the complex fallout from the events of November 1983. The fourth season further expands the show's scope, with major storylines taking place outside of Hawkins for the first time. A fifth season returned solely to Hawkins to conclude the series. Two spin-off series - a live-action series and an animated series - are in development

Young Will Byers is cycling home from a Dungeons & Dragons campaign at a friend's house, when a terrifying figure suddenly appears, Will tries to escape and hide, but the Monster abducts him to an alternate dimension. Will's friends Dustin, Lucas and Mike begin investigating his disappearance; while looking for Will in the local forest, the boys find a girl with a shaved head in a hospital gown, who they let stay in Mike's basement. They learn her "name" is Eleven and discover she possesses psychokinetic abilities. Will's mother, Joyce, becomes transfixed by supernatural events affecting the house electricity - she's convinced Will is communicating with her. As these strange events continue, she witnesses (and is threatened by) the same monster that took Will. Meanwhile, police chief Jim Hopper grows suspicious of the nearby national laboratory and begins researching into the facility's shady history. Mike's older sister Nancy attends a pool party hosted by her new boyfriend Steve, begrudgingly accompanied by her best friend Barb. Jonathan, Will's brother, witnesses the events of the party, taking photos. While alone, Barb is abducted by the Monster....

A group of criminals killed a man; they flee in a van but are pursued by police. They escape from police when the group goes under a tunnel, where rocks fall and block the opening. However, it is revealed that the rocks were only a vision in the mind of the lead policeman. Back in the van, it is revealed that a girl named Kali, a member of the gang, has caused the vision. She is bleeding from her left nostril and we see a tattoo marked "008" on her wrist. Back in Hawkins, the boys go to the Palace Arcade, where they find that someone with the name "MADMAX" has beaten Dustin's high score in "Dig Dug" by over 100,000 points. At the arcade, Will experiences an "episode", where he finds himself in the Upside Down version of the arcade. In the episode, he sees a large "shadow monster". The next day at school, they meet a new student from California named Max Mayfield, who immediately captures the affection of Lucas and Dustin. Dustin believes she is "MADMAX" but Lucas is skeptical. At Hawkins High, Max's stepbrother Billy Hargrove arrives, and begins to compete with Steve for the title of "King". Will, who has been experiencing the episodes frequently, is taken by Joyce and Hopper to Hawkins Lab, where he is seen by Dr. Sam Owens, the new head scientist. Meanwhile, Joyce has begun seeing Bob Newby, a classmate from high school and the manager of the local RadioShack. Nancy and Steve have been having regular dinners with the Holland family following Barb's death. Nancy, who is still grieving Barb's death, learns that the Hollands (who are unaware Barb is dead) are selling their house to afford to pay an investigative journalist named Murray Bauman to find Barb; Nancy feels responsible and guilty. At the basement, Mike futilely tries to contact Eleven for the 352nd day in a row since her disappearance but is unsuccessful. Later, Hopper goes to a cabin in the woods, where it is revealed he lives there with Eleven, who is still alive...

It's 1985 in Hawkins, Indiana, and summer's heating up. School's out, there's a brand new mall in town, and the Hawkins crew are on the cusp of adulthood. Romance blossoms and complicates the group's dynamic, and they'll have to figure out how to grow up without growing apart. Meanwhile, danger looms. When the town's threatened by enemies old and new, Eleven and her friends are reminded that evil never ends; it evolves. Now they’ll have to band together to survive, and remember that friendship is always stronger than fear. Plot summary June, 1984. A facility in Kamchatka, the Soviet Union... Soviet scientists attempt to force open a gate to the Upside Down. However, the mission fails. Hitman Grigori kills a scientist under orders of Stepanov, who gives the other scientist Dr. Alexei one year. One year later in Hawkins, the divisive new Starcourt Mall has forced much of the town out of business. Mike and Eleven have begun a romantic relationship, much to Hopper's chagrin; he later threatens Mike into agreeing not to see her. Dustin returns from summer camp and sets up a radio tower to contact his new girlfriend, Suzie, but his friends ditch him; soon after, he accidentally intercepts a Russian-language transmission. Will, possessing a lingering connection to the Upside Down, privately senses that the Mind Flayer may still be alive. Rats congregate in an abandoned mill called Brimborn Steel Works, where they explode into an organic mass. On his way to a rendezvous with Karen Wheeler, Billy is run off the road by an unseen creature and dragged inside the mill. Billy escapes, but not before the creature induces a vision of the Upside Down. Tormented by further visions and voices, Billy is guided by the creature into kidnapping his co-worker Heather Holloway, taking her to the creature. Nancy and Jonathan, working as interns at The Hawkins Post, investigate the home of Doris Driscoll, an elderly woman concerned about rabid rats eating her fertilizer. Max and Eleven bond to distract themselves from Mike and Lucas while shopping at Starcourt; Eleven breaks up with Mike after he lies to her about Hopper threatening him. Joyce investigates a strange loss of magnetism among objects at her home and workplace, accidentally standing Hopper up for a date. At Starcourt's ice cream parlor, Scoops Ahoy, Dustin reunites with Steve, who now works at the parlor. Steve's co-worker and former classmate Robin becomes curious about their activities, and helps them translate the Russian transmission; the three uncover a coded message...

It's been eight months since the Battle of Starcourt, which brought terror and destruction to Hawkins. Struggling with the aftermath, our group of friends are separated for the first time - and navigating the complexities of high school hasn't made things easier. In this most vulnerable time, a new and horrifying supernatural threat surfaces, presenting a gruesome mystery, that if solved, might finally put an end to the horrors of the Upside Down. Plot summary September 8, 1979. Hawkins National Laboratory, Hawkins... Dr. Brenner is experimenting on test subject 010 until a mysterious incident kills all of the subjects except Eleven. In 1986 — eight months after the events at Starcourt Mall — Joyce, Will, Jonathan, and Eleven have moved to a new house in Lenora Hills, California, where Eleven struggles with the loss of her powers and is bullied by other students at Lenora Hills High School. Joyce receives a porcelain doll in the mail, seemingly from Russia, and finds a hidden note stating that Hopper is alive. In Hawkins, Mike and Dustin have joined the high school's "Hellfire Club", a Dungeons & Dragons club led by iconoclast Eddie Munson. As a result, they miss seeing Lucas win the basketball team's championship game. Max, who has broken up with Lucas, struggles to come to terms with Billy's death. Chrissy Cunningham, a student on the cheerleading team, is haunted by visions of her abusive mother Laura Cunningham and a chiming grandfather clock. While buying drugs from Eddie, Chrissy is possessed and killed by a sentient humanoid figure from her visions. Hopper is shown in a flashback to have survived the explosion of the Key under Starcourt Mall, but is captured by Soviet soldiers and sent to a prison camp in Kamchatka. Joyce and Murray call the phone number on the note sent to Joyce and speak to "Enzo," revealed to be Dmitri Antonov, a prison guard that Hopper has bribed. Antonov has them deliver a $40,000 ransom to his contact in Alaska. Mike flies to California to visit Eleven, where he and Will witness her being bullied by her classmates Angela and Jake at Rink-O-Mania; Eleven eventually retaliates by striking Angela in the face with a roller skate. Back in Hawkins, Max tells Dustin she saw Eddie run away the night that Chrissy died. With help from Robin and Steve, they locate the traumatized Eddie and explain the Upside Down to him; Eddie and Dustin name the entity that killed Chrissy "Vecna". Nancy and her fellow student reporter at The Weekly Streak Fred Benson investigate Chrissy's death; Eddie's uncle Wayne Munson tells Nancy he believes the killer is Victor Creel, a Hawkins resident who was institutionalized after allegedly murdering his family in 1959. Fred is lured into the woods by visions of a student he accidentally killed before Vecna murders him...

“The fall of 1987. Hawkins is scarred by the opening of the Rifts, and our heroes are united by a single goal: find and kill Vecna. But he has vanished — his whereabouts and plans unknown. Complicating their mission, the government has placed the town under military quarantine and intensified its hunt for Eleven, forcing her back into hiding. As the anniversary of Will’s disappearance approaches, so does a heavy, familiar dread. The final battle is looming — and with it, a darkness more powerful and more deadly than anything they’ve faced before. To end this nightmare, they’ll need everyone — the full party — standing together, one last time.”