Ahead of the fifth and final season of “Stranger Things,” the Duffer Brothers brought fans back to the very beginning as series co-creator Ross Duffer went on Instagram Wednesday to share a never-before-seen sizzle reel the brothers used to sell the show.
Like “Stranger Things,” the sizzle reel is dense with references to iconic films, many of them from the 1970s and ’80s. In his comment, Ross Duffer noted that the first person to name every film featured in the reel will get a mystery reward.
“We’ve never shown this before—this is the original sizzle reel Matt and I made to help sell the show. Putting synth over classic Spielbergian imagery got us so excited about what the show could be,” Ross Duffer said in the caption. “Most importantly, this is how we discovered our composers Kyle and Michael—we used their music for the final montage and immediately thought, ‘This is cool.’”
You can view the post below.
The sizzle reel boasts the title “Montauk,” a name that would eventually turn into “Stranger Things.” In the reel, the central mystery likewise takes place in Montauk, Long Island, rather than Hawkins, Indiana. This alludes to the Montauk Project — a real-world conspiracy theory that inspired the Duffers’ Netflix original.
Not everything from the Duffers’ sizzle got scrapped. In the post, Ross Duffer notes that the reel marked the brothers’ first union with Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein. Dixon and Stein, who scored the sizzle reel, went on to provide the iconic synth score throughout “Stranger Things.”
The reel cuts between a number of films that released before, during and after the 1980s setting of “Stranger Things.” Spielberg hits like “Jaws” and “E.T.” are included in the footage, mirroring the heavy inspiration the director would have on the eventual series. Horror films from the ’70s and ’80s like “Halloween” and “Poltergeist” are also represented in the reel. Some more modern films, like Denis Villeneuve’s thriller “Prisoners” or Matt Reeves’ “Let the Right One In” remake “Let Me In,” additionally made the cut.
The fifth and final season of “Stranger Things” will release in three installments on Netflix across the 2025 holiday season. The first four episodes will premiere on Netflix the day before Thanksgiving. The next three will upload on Christmas Day. Netflix will release the series finale on New Year’s Eve.
