Hi I'm Ross.

I'm Matt.

And we're the Duffer brothers,

and we created Stranger Things.

And this is a definitive list of

all the film references in Stranger Things.

Well, most of them.

Ish.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

Get away from her, you bitch!

So we're huge fans of the Alien franchise,

especially Alien and Aliens.

It depends on the year in terms of

which one we think is better.

Basically they're both incredible films.

Aliens in particular really had

a big influence on season two,

especially when you have the soldiers

going in the underground tunnels and stuff.

But all the stuff in terms of atmospheric effects,

some of it we were inspired by the video game Silent Hill,

but some of it was also inspired by what it was like

when they went on the planet in Ridley Scott's Alien.

And we even have an egg there, the Demogorgon egg,

which is inspired by what they discover

on the planet in Alien.

And that egg was real.

In season one especially, all the spores,

all the spores blowing through the air,

that was all real.

We were blowing them around.

We had David and Winona walking around

in those suits in the forest.

It was old school, just blowing these

basically little tiny feathers in their faces.

It was a lot of fun for them.

Oh god, please tell me it's not the kid.

The police officers who discover Will's body,

we gave a little nod to Dan O'Bannon,

who was the writer for Alien.

[Male On TV] We should be safe because we think

this is just an isolated incident.

[Male On TV] State Trooper David O'Bannon,

thank you so much for your help.

As we've said before, Alien was such a huge

reference for us.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

Altered States, I think mostly was an inspiration

in terms of just the experiments

that Brenner was performing on Eleven,

specifically the isolation tank is something

we discussed about, and looked at that film

when we were building our isolation tank.

But it's a trippy, trippy film that could have

only been made in the 70s.

I think it was 1980, now I think about it.

I was close.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

[people screaming]

You know, when we first came up with this idea

we were always talking about Stephen King

and why his books resonated so much with us.

And one of those books of course was Carrie.

In Carrie of course you have a high school girl

who has these amazing powers, these amazing abilities,

and we always looked at how King dealt with that

when we talked about Eleven in this idea.

She has these amazing abilities,

but is she ultimately dangerous?

Especially when she's with these kids

and we see her when she hurts Lucas out in the junkyard.

[screaming]

And we sort of see that these powers

aren't necessarily fully under her control,

or that she can lose control,

and when she does she can be dangerous.

Looking at that as a girl with these powers

who's unable to fit into society

is a real big touchstone for us.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

[spaceship beeping]

The two Stephens are the biggest influence for us,

so we've talked a little bit about Stephen King

and then there's Steven Spielberg,

who you may have heard of.

There was a lot of imagery in season two

that evoked Close Encounters of the Third Kind,

particularly the sequence where Barry is kidnapped.

That was the sequence when we were kids

and we saw Close Encounters for the first time

that kind of stayed with us the most.

So when Will is first getting signals

from the Upside Down in episode one

and he hears thunder outside and he opens that door,

that's a pretty direct homage to Close Encounters.

And we do an homage with this year with Dustin,

when his toys sort of all go out of control

and he has to...

I mean he realizes ultimately that

it's just Eleven manipulating him

but that was definitely a nod towards it.

And then that was all, all those toys were,

so we had every toy was on a remote control,

and it was one of those things where

there are about 10 toys, there's 10 remotes,

and you figure it's gonna be an absolute disaster,

and it actually worked out pretty well.

Every hiding spot behind sofas, beds, closets,

there was someone with a remote control

and they were all trying to get these things

to all work together.

When it worked it was really miraculous.

And the last thing about Close Encounters

I will say is also it's set in Indiana

and that was a big touchstone for us

when we were deciding where to set this show.

So it was things like Close Encounters and Breaking Away

that really inspired us as kids growing up,

so we felt that was a great Everywhere, USA,

kind of locations.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

[dog growling]

Cujo, we obviously referenced that in season one.

I think we have one of the guards

in the Hawkings Lab reading Cujo.

It had a really nice big picture of Stephen King

on the back and we thought that was a way

of tipping our hat to the King of course.

I love that book, that's a nasty mutt.

If it wasn't obvious enough that we owed him a debt,

we try to make it more obvious in that shot.

That's right.

And then in season two we have some demo-dogs,

is kind of a new creature, so they're big bad dogs.

So they're a little bit Cujo,

they're a little bit the dogs from Ghostbusters.

But big bad scary dogs are always fun.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

[E.T.] E.T. home phones.

E.T. was a big film for us growing up,

as it was for a lot of kids,

it was like mildly traumatizing.

But you know, it was a huge influence on us

in terms of the opening scene of Stranger Things

is our kids playing Dungeons and Dragons and eating pizza,

and there's obviously the scene in E.T.

where the kids are playing D&D.

But the idea of basically a kid in a relatable

suburban setting who encounters something extraordinary.

The feeling that that gave us as kids

is the feeling that we wanted to capture with the show.

And then in episode three in season one

we have the kids also trying to dress up Eleven

to make her seem like a normal girl,

which was a nod when they try to dress up E.T.

to try to make E.T. fit in.

And then in season two of course is our Halloween season,

and E.T. is set around Halloween,

so we looked at that for inspiration in terms of

the costumes that all the kids were wearing

as they sort of went out into the world.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

[upbeat music]

When we pitched this to Netflix we cut together

a little reel that included some of

the movies we loved just to get across the tone,

and it also was scored to John Carpenter music.

So that's sort of always been our go-to in sort of

what the sound, the show can sound like.

In season two, in episode seven,

when Eleven ends up going to Chicago

and meeting up with her sister,

we use one of his scores from Escape From New York.

We attempt with it and we just said this has

gotta go in the show because it just fits too perfectly.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

[explosions]

Firestarter was a big reference specifically for Eleven

in the case that you've got a young girl

that has these incredible powers,

she's on the run from the government.

And we also looked at Firestarter

in terms of the backstory for Eleven

and how she could possibly get these powers.

We needed something visual that would represent

Eleven using her powers.

When she uses her abilities she gets a nosebleed,

and that was something we settled on very early on

that we thought would very simply tell the audience

each time she's used these powers.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

Who are you?

I'm Maria.

Would you play with me?

Frankenstein was referenced in,

and we included it in episode two of season two,

when Eleven's at home alone and she's watching it.

And the reason we wanted to include that

and the reason we talked about Frankenstein

writing this is that this is just,

that Eleven is feeling like a Frankenstein's Monster

in that she's feeling isolated and alone,

and she feels different from everyone else

and just cut off, and she feels like a monster.

And so that's why we wanted her to be

watching that film in episode two.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

Aim for the flag top.

Ghostbusters is one of our favorite films of all time.

I mean we watched it way too many times as children,

so it's all over the show, it's one of the ones,

you know, we gave probably the most direct

reference to Ghostbusters in season two

when we obviously have the kids dress up as Ghostbusters.

'Cause we were trying to figure out

what they were gonna wear for Halloween.

One of 'em was gonna always be a Ghostbusters

and then someone was like,

Why aren't they all just Ghostbusters?

They can each be a Ghostbusters.

So that was so fun, dressing up all of our kids

as these characters.

And also deciding who would be who,

just arguing about it in the room and being like

everyone would wanna be Venkman,

and so that sort of led to the Venkman argument.

Why are you Venkman?

Because I'm Venkman.

No, I'm Venkman.

Why can't there just be two Venkmans?

Because there's only one Venkman in real life.

We planned this months ago.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

[Male] You're kidding.

Gremlins is, first of all,

one of our favorite films growing up,

and there's also a big reference,

particularly in season two of the show, with Dart,

which, like Gizmo, begins as this sort of

loving creature that Dustin is trying to take care of

and he starts to actually care for this cute little thing,

and then of course we realize that it's anything but,

it's a baby Demogorgon.

And I think there's a scene in episode three, I believe,

where Dart is starting to grow when he escapes,

and the kids are trying to attack it and go after it,

and we had our composer sort of do a little theme

that sounded a little bit like the original Gremlins theme,

'cause we just wanted to give it a little tip of the hat.

[Gremlins Theme Song]

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

We're big Indiana Jones fans.

We are big fans of Temple of Doom,

and specifically we referenced it,

I think it was in season two, episode nine,

the final episode of season two,

when we have Max driving Billy's car,

and she's got a block on the pedal

just like Short Round has to use a block

in order to drive the car in Temple of Doom

when they make their escape.

I remember our production designer being like,

Sadie doesn't need a block, she can reach that.

And then we were so devastated

'cause we wanted to give that little nod,

but then we put Sadie in the car

and she could not reach the pedal.

I'm sure now she could but luckily in season two

she couldn't, so we got our block in there.

Obviously Indiana Jones himself is

a big reference for Hopper and we always,

we talk to David about Harrison Ford

probably more than anything else,

and trying to just sort of capture that energy.

That's one reason we have Hopper

punching people all the time,

because Indiana Jones punches people all the time.

David was upset because in season two

he didn't get to punch anybody,

and so in season three there's a ton

of Hopper punching people.

David is really good at capturing the Harrison Ford essence.

Not many modern actors are able to do it.

Aside from Harrison Ford of course,

who is the one and only Indiana Jones.

There can be no more.

That's right.

The opening scene of season three

includes something horrible happening to

some scientists that were inspired by

the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark,

where they open the ark and it just

causes these horrific things to happen,

and that just seared itself into our brains.

So we wanted to give a little nod to that.

Like sometimes I'm more in the mood

to watch The Last Crusade.

The banter between Sean Connery and Harrison Ford,

and it's just, it's very similar to Raiders, of course,

but it's just got a little bit of a different tone.

But if you just wanna learn how to make a film,

I mean just watch Raiders.

I mean every scene is a masterclass, it really is.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

Nightmare On Elm Street was a huge film

for us growing up, it really scared us

but we couldn't help but keep watching it.

Episode three in season one,

when Holly goes up to the wall and you can see

the Demogorgon moving from behind the wall,

which is very similar to when you see

Freddy Krueger coming out of the wall

above Nancy's bed in Nightmare On Elm Street.

But it's funny 'cause in Nightmare On Elm Street

they did that practically, that effective Krueger

coming through the wall, with latex,

and that's what we attempted to do and failed.

We basically had our monster, a guy in a suit,

pressing his face and hands through the wall.

And it wasn't particularly scary.

We had a little toddler on set playing Holly

and she thought it was amusing,

which was a sign that it wasn't exactly working.

So we had to enhance it quite a bit with CG

in post production.

So we were, especially in season one,

determined to do everything practically,

and I think maybe it was like a 50% success rate.

But it makes you more impressed about, in terms of,

or more blown away, by what they were able

to achieve back then.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

Aren't you gonna say hello?

Well Stephen King's IT, huge influence on the show.

We actually first experienced it

when we saw the mini-series back in 1990,

so we were around six or seven,

way too young for this thing.

We already were definitely scared of clowns

and that just pushed it over the edge.

Couldn't sleep for a couple weeks.

Like the most scared I've ever been in my life.

It's an incredible book.

It's really about these kids and their friendship,

and how by working together, uniting,

and through the strength of their friendship

they're able to overcome this incredible

inter-dimensional evil.

So without IT there really would be

no Stranger Things probably.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

We're gonna need a bigger boat.

When we have to name a favorite film

we usually lean on Jaws, because I think it does,

to us, everything that we love about cinema.

It has great characters, comedy, spectacle.

It's about a chief of police--

[Ross] Small town.

In a small town, where something

out of the ordinary happens.

So it's a big influence in that way.

Big influence.

I mean we have Hopper's car is very much,

very closely inspired by Chief Brody's car.

And also in season three, we've been wanting a Larry,

Larry Vaughn is the mayor in Jaws

and we've been wanting a Larry Vaughn character

every year and we never just have room,

and we finally have room this year for it.

So Cary Elwes, who's just incredible,

has come in and sort of taken on this part of mayor

that's very much inspired by that,

where it's someone who is much more

concerned about his doing well for himself

than he is necessarily about the wellbeing of the town.

Whenever we were talking about

the Demogorgon in season one,

he was very much influenced by the shark in Jaws,

because we wanted it to be a shark-like creature,

except instead of coming out from under the water

he was coming out from another dimension.

It would break through the surface of that dimension,

reach into ours, grab a victim, like Barb for instance,

and pull that victim back into his world.

So instead of the underwater it's the Upside Down.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

John Hughes was a big influence,

and all of his films were really,

you know, it's just something that's about

these sort of outcasts that are coming together,

and they have all these differences

but at the end of the day they end up

realizing that they have more in common than they thought,

and that sort of character development is something

we talk about when we're working on the show.

When we were working on season two

or developing season two, we always knew we wanted it

to end at the snow ball, which is an idea that

we had introduced even end of season one.

And so we always knew that that was

gonna be the ending of season two,

which feels like at least 50% or more

of the classic teen 80s films feature

some sort of massive dance where everything goes down.

John Hughes has especially mastered that,

and so we wanted to pay homage to that.

This year we have a new character

who he's working with at the mall,

which is Robin, played by Maya Hawke.

The whole vibe there in the mall is very John Hughes

in that we have a bunch of characters

kind of forced to work together who

normally would not associate with one another.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

[dinosaur roars]

We saw Jurassic Park in theaters

and I just remember it just blew our minds

just in terms of the spectacle,

and the dinosaurs were just so incredible

and they honestly still are.

It holds up so well.

And Jurassic Park is referenced, or was a reference for us,

in season two, particularly episode eight,

when our characters are stuck in Hawkins Lab

and they have to escape, and Bob has to go,

he has to go and reset the power

in order for them to get out,

which is very similar to when Laura Dern

has to sort of follow a map to get the power

going back on in Jurassic Park.

It goes better for Laura Dern though,

than it did for Bob, unfortunately for Bob.

So then also season three,

it's a pretty big reference, we have a lot.

We have some hiding sequences with the children this year

that was very much inspired by the classic

kitchen scene in Jurassic Park,

where they're hiding from those raptors.

We watched that over and over again,

I mean I think it's one of the best

suspense sequences in film history,

which is when the kids are hiding

from the raptors in the kitchen.

Incredible filmmaking.

You can learn everything you need to know

about directing suspense from watching that scene.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

[dramatic music]

We're big Mad Max fans, so when this new kid,

Max, comes into town, we figured she'd

likely be a Mad Max fan as well.

And like Max she's an outsider that's sort of

coming into this community.

So we felt that it applied to her character

and that this is someone that feels

very different than the others

and she's really an outcast.

And ultimately she ends up, of course,

bonding with this group and becoming the hero.

[Matt] And then driving like a badass,

driving like Mel Gibson.

Hello!

Incredible.

Told you, zoomer.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

♪ Just take those old records off the shelf ♪

Risky Business, first of all,

if you haven't seen Risky Business, it's a great film,

it's a kind of weirdly dark 80s film.

In season two, it's one of our more direct references,

of course, again.

Steve and Nancy arrive at their Halloween party

dressed as the characters from Risky Business.

Which also worked because it was all white,

and we wanted it to, when she spills the punch,

to be a very dramatic event.

So that all white outfit really worked out for us.

What the hell?

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

[people screaming]

Scanners is a great film and it was a reference for us,

particularly in terms of Eleven's powers.

In episode seven of season one,

where she just sort of makes the

government agent's minds melt.

It's not as grotesque as Scanners.

I don't think Netflix would have loved it

if we'd blown their heads off.

But that was our version of it.

Without getting into too big spoiler territory

we definitely go a bit Cronenberg in season three.

And when we were taping sound

I remember we couldn't quite get the right exploding sound.

So for the temp sound we just took it from Scanners.

It was the best explosion sound we could find still.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

Train!

Stand By Me is one of our favorite films

and we saw it when we were really young.

I remember it being a big deal

because we were watching an R rated movie,

which we weren't allowed to watch a lot of R rated movies.

Because they just cursed though,

our parents deemed it was okay.

Deemed it appropriate and thought we should watch it,

and I'm really glad they let us watch it.

Stand By Me is based on a novella by Stephen King

called The Body.

It's not a coincidence that we named

episode four of season one The Body.

Sort of the most direct nod to it is when we have,

well in season on and two we have characters

who are walking down these train tracks.

That was a big part of Stand By Me is

they were following the train tracks to the body.

So that's probably our most direct homage to that classic.

We actually, when we were auditioning our kids,

we had them audition with scenes from that film.

I think a lot of our kids hadn't seen Stand By Me,

and that was a homework assignment for them,

that they had to watch Stand By Me.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

Empire Strikes Back is a, I mean we go back and forth

on whether we like that or A New Hope better.

It's sort of like Alien/Aliens,

it depends on the day of the week.

But it was a big film for us growing up.

First of all Eleven's powers can be seen as force-like,

and that's why we have Mike showing her

the Yoda figurine in his room in episode two,

Weirdo On Maple Street.

And the boys are obviously huge Star Wars fans,

as they would be at that time.

And when Dustin feels someone's being a traitor

he refers to them as Lando,

which is obviously a reference to Empire as well.

Lando Calrissian.

Would you shut up about Lando?

And then also we always saw episode seven of season two

as sort of Eleven going to her Dagobah

and seeing her Yoda, which was a sort of,

in this experience, gaining some sort of

enhancement of her powers that allows her

to defeat this evil.

So you know, her especially moving a train,

it very much evokes Luke trying to

pull his plane out of the swamp.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

[children screaming]

Super 8.

So a lot like our show it was a homage

and trying to capture the spirit of these films

that we grew up loving.

We have a scene in season two, episode six, I believe,

when the kids are hiding in the bus

and the demo-dogs are attacking it,

which is similar to a scene in Super 8

when they're also hiding in the bus from giant monsters.

And one of the boys in Super 8 uses

firecrackers to fight the monster,

and without giving away too much,

the kids may or may not employ fireworks

to their advantage in season three.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

The Evil Dead is one of those movies

that we saw when we were way too young.

It's a pretty funny movie actually,

but when you're that young the humor is

completely lost on you and we just thought

it was straight up terrifying.

I'm trying to think like specifically

what we referenced in that.

Well it's the poster, right.

Obviously Jonathan has the poster up in his room,

which his deadbeat dad disapproves of,

but we felt like Jonathan would be

someone who would like this.

'Cause you know, it was an independent film at the time,

it was pretty extreme back then as it is still now.

And so we felt though that Jonathan, as this outcast,

would be someone who would love Evil Dead.

I'm not sure how he saw it actually,

but you know, he found a way.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

[Male] Damien!

Amen.

Well The Exorcist, obviously if you're gonna have

any sort of evil child that is the go-to film,

and so in season two when we have Will possessed,

certainly his head doesn't spin around

but we did try to capture a little bit

of that eeriness that you feel from Linda Blair.

And Will of course, he like sit cold,

the mind flayer likes it cold.

Reagan in The Exorcist, I mean it's...

Over the course of that film it gets,

the temperature in that house gets increasingly cold.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

The Fog was a big reference for us in terms of,

specifically in terms of the music score.

We cut together a trailer for Netflix

to help sell the show.

We used a track from The Fog.

This year there's a very Fog-like scene in season three.

This isn't getting too spoilery I hope,

but you see Billy in the Upside Down

and he sees some figures coming towards him out of the fog.

Who those figures are, you'll have to watch.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

It all starts here.

The Goonies. The Goonies.

I remember when we first watched The Goonies

when we were kids we immediately

just hit rewind on the VHS and watched it again.

And obviously just sort of the energy that the kids have

and the comradery is a big touchstone for us.

Yeah and specifically I think it was

probably more overtly referenced in season two

when we had, in the final episode, season nine,

when they all go down into the tunnel together.

It feels a lot like The Goonies

going underground in search of their treasure.

It's a little bit of a darker take on that,

but it was a big reference.

And of course we had, the lead of The Goonies

was Sean Astin, who we cast in season two as Bob,

which was a real treat for us.

So to have a grown up Sean Astin in our film

and he in fact references something as a treasure map.

Don't you get it, it's not a puzzle, it's a map.

It's a map of Hawkins.

So a little nod to his role in The Goonies,

and Sean was all about doing it.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

I'll be back.

We're big fans, I'm sure this is a surprise,

of The Terminator franchise.

In the vast minority in that I prefer

the original Terminator to T2.

I'm gonna get some hate for that.

Arnold's the bad dude, so.

I like Arnold as the bad guy.

And so very much we wanted to have

our own Arnold this year in season three,

and we found the most incredible Arnold lookalike,

but he also captures very much the spirit of Arnold,

and I wish I could talk about the character more

without spoiling things but I can't.

But just we have a Terminator-esque character

who is not a robot however.

There's not like some twist like he's a robot.

That would be a little ridiculous.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

So The Thing is one of our favorite movies.

I think we saw it a little bit later,

like I think we were in high school,

'cause like all the movie books had talked about

how this wasn't a good movie, which just blows my mind.

You know, especially season three,

just in terms of that we have...

Again I don't wanna get too spoilery,

but the monster or monsters this season

are really inspired by the monster work

that they did on The Thing in terms of

that it's certainly our grossest season yet,

and that's one thing we do love about The Thing,

which is just sort of how grotesque it is.

And there's actually a dialogue scene

between the kids in season three

where they discuss the merits of what is better,

Howard Hawks' The Thing, the original Thing from the 50s,

or John Carpenter's remake.

It's like Carpenter's The Thing.

The original is a classic, no question about it.

But the remake.

[slurps]

We also, of course, season two,

we have the flamethrower element,

and the fact that this thing doesn't react well to flame,

but the creatures react negatively to fire.

I mean that was a big element in The Thing

and there's nothing cooler really

than Kurt Russel with a flamethrower.

To show our love and affection for The Thing

we have the boys in the basement,

Mike has a poster of The Thing.

And Mr. Clarke is when they call him

to try to figure out about how to create

their own sort of isolation tank.

Mr. Clarke of course is watching The Thing

with his girlfriend and trying to explain

how they created these effects in the first place,

'cause again Matt and I are just still...

We love to research that stuff

'cause it really is mind blowing what they achieved.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]

I want you to tell me everything you saw

when you went in the bathroom.

Witness.

So it's weird, so not everything we reference

is a genre film.

And so we're huge fans of the director Peter Weir.

but there was a scene with Harrison Ford

in the police station when a little boy

in the police station points at a picture

of the murderer who happens to be actually a cop

who works with Harrison Ford's character.

We had a sort of very similar scene by coincidence,

where Eleven sees the photo of Will

while in Mike's room and points at it,

and we really weren't quite sure how to shoot the scene

and we really looked at Witness

and how Peter Weir shot that scene.

And he used a lot of zooming camera.

And at that point, before then we hadn't really

used the zoom because we were worried about it

being too cheesy or cliche.

But after we shot that scene we loved how it turned out

and we now kind of embrace the zoom.

Thanks Wired.

So that has been each and every movie reference

in Stranger Things--

Mostly.

Not all, but a lot.

Lots of them.

A lot of them.

70%, 80%.

[Stranger Things Theme Song]