Netflix continues string of home-video releases with Stranger Things box set

Like a 30-something confronting their teenage music collection, Netflix is feeling warmly nostalgic about its past. One can imagine Ted Sarandos blowing the dust off a red envelope he found above his unused DVD player only to find that copy of Berlin Alexanderplatz he never returned inside. On the heels of allowing the Criterion Collection to release Kpop Demon Hunters and Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, the boutique label Arrow Video announced it is releasing a massive Stranger Things complete-series box set. 

Arriving this July, the box set will mark the first time seasons three, four, and five have been available on home video. Previously, seasons one and two were released on Blu-ray in limited-edition VHS-style packaging. This new 25-disc collection isn’t that cute, but it does include all 42-episodes on 4K UHD, as well as behind-the-scenes featurettes, cast and crew interviews, a couple of tchotchkes, a 148-page art book, and, most importantly, bloopers. What’s a DVD release without bloops? 

Netflix has given its more prestigious, auteur-driven productions Criterion releases in the past, including The Irishman, The Power Of The Dog, del Toro’s Pinocchio, Marriage Story, Roma and the original Netflix movie, Beasts Of No Nation. Obviously, this Stranger Things collection isn’t a guarantee of more home-video releases. But with each new disc, we get closer to Netflix releasing its most demanded hostages: The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs, the later works of David Fincher, and The Otherside Of Wind, from when Netflix thought it could win over Hollywood by finishing Orson Welles movies. We look forward to Netflix being nostalgic for that again, one day, too