Stranger Things Characters

Mike Wheeler

Party leader · Dungeon Master

Mike runs the D&D campaigns and, by default, the Party. He's stubborn, loyal and quick to believe the impossible, which is why he hides Eleven in his basement rather than calling the police. His friendship with Will and his relationship with Eleven are the two emotional anchors of his story. In later seasons his arc is about saying out loud what he usually keeps to himself.

Actor

Finn Wolfhard

Dustin Henderson

The Party's scientist

Dustin is curious, talkative and endlessly enthusiastic, the kid who builds a radio tower in his spare time and adopts a strange creature he finds in the bin. He's often the one who works out how the Upside Down behaves. His friendship with Steve Harrington, which starts in season two, became one of the show's best-loved pairings, and his long-distance girlfriend Suzie gives season three a sweet running joke.

Actor

Gaten Matarazzo

Lucas Sinclair

The Party's sceptic

Lucas is the practical one, armed with binoculars and a wrist-rocket slingshot. In season one he's the most suspicious of Eleven, and he's usually the first to ask whether a plan actually makes sense. His relationship with Max drives a lot of his story from season two onward, and in season four he joins the basketball team, which puts him between his old friends and the popular crowd at the worst possible moment.

Actor

Caleb McLaughlin

Will Byers

The boy who vanished

Will's disappearance starts the series, and he spends most of season one trapped in the Upside Down. He comes back changed: haunted by visions, sensitive to the other world and, in season two, possessed by the Mind Flayer. He's quiet and artistic, close to his mother and brother, and the show handles his growing feelings for Mike with real care. He's the clearest example of what the Upside Down does to a person.

Actor

Noah Schnapp

Max Mayfield

Skateboarder · Joins in season two

Max arrives from California in season two with a skateboard, a high score at the arcade and a volatile stepbrother, Billy. The boys compete for her attention; she mostly wants to be taken seriously. Her friendship with Eleven in season three is pure fun, and her season four storyline, in which grief makes her a target for Vecna, is one of the show's strongest hours of television.

Actor

Sadie Sink

Erica Sinclair

Lucas's little sister

Erica is sharp, sarcastic and entirely unimpressed by her brother's friends. She gets pulled into the season three plot because she's small enough to crawl through air vents, and then negotiates free ice cream for life as payment. She's the show's best scene-stealer, and she's braver than she lets on.

Actor

Priah Ferguson

Steve Harrington

Former king of Hawkins High · Babysitter

Steve begins as Nancy's popular, slightly careless boyfriend and looks set to be a standard '80s jock. Instead he turns into the show's most loved character: the one who shows up with a nail-studded bat, takes a beating so the kids don't have to, and ends up as the Party's unofficial babysitter. His friendships with Dustin and Robin show a gentler side that season one never hinted at.

Actor

Joe Keery

Nancy Wheeler

Mike's older sister · Aspiring journalist

Nancy starts as a straight-A student with a new boyfriend and becomes the most determined investigator in the older group. When her best friend Barb vanishes, she refuses to let it go, and she later chases stories at the local newspaper while being dismissed by the men who run it. She's a good shot, a planner and a natural leader, and her relationships with Steve and Jonathan form a long-running triangle.

Actor

Natalia Dyer

Jonathan Byers

Will's older brother · Photographer

Jonathan is a quiet loner who has been helping raise Will since their father left. He watches the world through a camera lens, which gets him into trouble in season one and gives him a reason to team up with Nancy. Underneath the shyness he's fiercely protective of his family, and he carries more responsibility than anyone his age should.

Actor

Charlie Heaton

Robin Buckley

Steve's co-worker · Joins in season three

Robin works with Steve at the Scoops Ahoy ice-cream parlour in Starcourt Mall and turns out to be a gifted codebreaker. She's fast-talking, funny and good at languages. Her coming-out scene with Steve in season three, and his easy acceptance, is one of the show's most quietly important moments, and her friendship with Nancy grows into a strong partnership in season four.

Actor

Maya Hawke

Billy Hargrove

Max's stepbrother

Billy is a hot-tempered newcomer from California who bullies Max and picks fights with Steve. Season three shows where his anger comes from, an abusive father, and then makes him a victim of the Mind Flayer, which uses him as its host. His arc is a hard look at how cruelty gets passed down.

Actor

Dacre Montgomery

Eddie Munson

Leader of the Hellfire Club · Season four

Eddie is a long-haired metalhead who runs the school's D&D club and has repeated his senior year more than once. When a cheerleader dies in his trailer, the town decides he's a satanic killer. He's loud, theatrical and much kinder than his reputation, and he became a fan favourite almost immediately.

Actor

Joseph Quinn

Joyce Byers

Will and Jonathan's mother

Joyce is a single mother working at the local general store, and when Will goes missing she is the only person who never accepts he's dead. She talks to him through Christmas lights strung across the living room wall, an image that defined the first season. People call her hysterical; she's right every time. Her partnership with Hopper is one of the show's steadiest relationships.

Actor

Winona Ryder

Jim Hopper

Hawkins police chief · Eleven's adoptive father

Hopper starts the series as a burned-out small-town chief still grieving his young daughter, Sara. Will's case drags him back into caring about something, and taking in Eleven gives him a second chance at being a father, though he is often clumsy and overprotective about it. His story moves from Hawkins to a Soviet prison and back, and it's the show's most direct study of grief turned into protection.

Actor

David Harbour

Murray Bauman

Conspiracy journalist

Murray is a paranoid former reporter who has been investigating Hawkins Lab for years and is, inconveniently, correct about most of it. He's blunt, prickly and very funny, and he ends up as a key ally to Joyce and Hopper. He also speaks Russian, which turns out to be useful.

Actor

Brett Gelman

Bob Newby

Joyce's boyfriend · Season two

Bob runs the local RadioShack and calls himself "Bob Newby, superhero" with no irony at all. He's warm, nerdy and genuinely good with Will. His computer skills matter at a crucial moment in season two, and many viewers rank him among the kindest people in the show.

Actor

Sean Astin

Dr. Martin Brenner

Head of the Hawkins experiments

Brenner is the silver-haired scientist who raised Eleven and the other numbered children and made them call him "Papa." He's calm, patient and completely willing to hurt children in the name of research. His shadow hangs over Eleven's whole story, and season four forces her to go back to him to recover what she lost.

Actor

Matthew Modine

Dr. Sam Owens

Lab director from season two

Owens replaces Brenner's team and is a more decent man working in an indecent institution. He tries to contain the gate and protect Will, and later helps Eleven, though he never quite stops being a government man.

Actor

Paul Reiser

Kali (Eight)

Another lab child · Season two

Kali is a fellow test subject who can project illusions. Eleven finds her in Chicago running with a gang of outcasts bent on revenge against the lab's staff. Their episode together is Eleven's first look at a different way to live with her past.

Actor

Linnea Berthelsen

Terry Ives

Eleven's birth mother

Terry volunteered for experiments in the 1970s while pregnant, and the lab took her baby. When she tried to get her daughter back, she was left with severe brain damage. Her scenes in season one explain where Eleven came from.

Actor

Aimee Mullins

The Mind Flayer

Shadow monster · Seasons two and three

The Party names it after another D&D monster. It's a huge, spider-like shadow that controls the creatures of the Upside Down as a hive mind, and it reaches into Hawkins by possessing people, first Will and later Billy and many others. In season three it builds itself a body of flesh.

The Demogorgon

Season one creature

The faceless creature whose head opens like a flower. It hunts by smelling blood and moves between worlds through gaps in the walls. The kids name it after the D&D demon prince, and it's the monster most people picture when they think of the show.