The Duffer Brothers
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Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer (born February 15, 1984), often credited as the Duffer Brothers, are both American film and television show makers. The brothers are identical twins and work on all their projects as a pair.[1] They are best known as the creators, showrunners, and executive producers of the Netflix science fiction horror series Stranger Things (2016–2025), and have also written and directed the horror film Hidden (2015) and written and produced episodes of the Fox science fiction series Wayward Pines (2015–2016). The Duffer Brothers founded the production company Upside Down Pictures, which is in an overall deal with Netflix.[2]
Career
Early career
After the brothers had written and directed several short films, they wrote a script titled "Origin", which gained them an agent, and their script for the post-apocalyptic horror film Hidden was acquired by Warner Bros. Pictures in 2011.[3] The brothers directed Hidden, which was released in 2015. Next they were hired as writers and producers for the Fox television series Wayward Pines. As of 2024, they were also the executive producers of a Netflix show called The Boroughs, described as a supernatural drama set in a retirement community in the New Mexico desert.[4]
Breakthrough with Stranger Things
With experience in television, they began pitching their idea for Stranger Things, which Dan Cohen eventually brought to Shawn Levy. Backed by Levy's 21 Laps production company, the show was quickly picked up by Netflix.[5][6] The show is set in 1980s Indiana and is an homage to 1980s pop culture,[7] inspired and aesthetically informed by the works of Steven Spielberg, John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Sam Raimi, David Lynch, Stephen King, and George Lucas, among others.[8][9] It was released on July 15, 2016, to overwhelming praise,[10] and began to develop a cult following online.[11]
On September 30, 2019, Netflix announced it had signed the Duffers for additional films and television shows over the coming years.[12]
In March 2021, the duo announced they will team up with Spielberg to adapt Stephen King's and Peter Straub's The Talisman as a Netflix series. They will both be executive producers via Amblin Partners and Monkey Massacre and have hired Curtis Gwinn, who worked as a writer-executive producer on Stranger Things, to act as writer and showrunner of the project.[13]
Following the premiere of the fourth season of Stranger Things in July 2022, the Duffers launched the production company Upside Down Pictures, for which they recommitted to Netflix with several new projects. Among these include a live-action series adaptation of Death Note, a series adaptation of The Talisman, and the Stranger Things spin-off series Tales from '85.[14]
Paramount
In August 2025, it was announced that the brothers and their company would be signing a four-year deal at Paramount, which results in the duo's departure from their long-time partnership at Netflix in April 2026. Their deal at Paramount will not only create new series from the studio's TV and streaming division, but also offers an opportunity for the brothers to produce and direct theatrical feature films for the studio as well, something that the duo weren't able to do while signed with Netflix.[15][16][17]
Personal lives
The Duffer Brothers were born and raised in Durham, North Carolina, the sons of Ann Marie Christensen (born 1951), a part-time real estate broker,[18] and Allen Pace Duffer Jr. (born 1946), a film buff and Research Triangle Institute[19] project director.[20]
They began making films in the third grade, using a Hi8 video camera that was a gift from their parents.[21][22] They attended the Duke School for Children[22] a private suburban school, from grades K through 8, and then the Charles E. Jordan High School, a large Durham public school.
They were accepted at the Florida State University College of Motion Picture Arts, but were not willing to be educated separately.[23] They toured New York University Tisch School of the Arts Department of Cinema Studies and USC School of Cinematic Arts but were not accepted, but someone they met introduced them to someone,[23] who suggested Chapman University's Dodge College of Film and Media Arts for film study and they relocated to Orange, California, where they graduated in 2007.[5][24]
Matt has two children with his fiancée, Sarah Hindsgaul;[25] Winona Ryder is the godmother.[26]
Ross married Fear Street trilogy filmmaker Leigh Janiak in December 2015. The couple met in 2006 at a production company in Los Angeles, where Janiak was an assistant to the producer and Ross was an intern.[27] In February 2024, Janiak filed for divorce after eight years of marriage.[28]
Filmography
Film
| Year | Title | Directors | Writers |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Hidden[29] | Template:Yes | Template:Yes |
Television
| Year | Title | Directors | Writers | Executive producers | Creators | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015–2016 | Wayward Pines | Template:No | Template:Yes | Template:Partial | Template:No | Wrote 4 episodes |
| 2016–2025 | Stranger Things | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Directed 24 episodes; wrote 20 episodes |
| 2026 | Stranger Things: Tales from '85 | Template:No | Template:No | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | |
| The Boroughs | Template:No | Template:No | Template:Yes | Template:No | ||
| Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen | Template:No | Template:No | Template:Yes | Template:No |
Awards
References
Notes
External links
Template:Bram Stoker Award for Best Screenplay
This article incorporates text from the Wikipedia article "The Duffer Brothers", available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.Retrieved 2026-03-06.
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- ↑ "Netflix Orders Supernatural Drama From 'Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance' Creators, Duffer Brothers to Produce"
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- ↑ Geoff Berkshire, "Stranger Things: Shawn Levy on Directing Winona Ryder, Netflix's Viral Model", Variety, July 22, 2016.
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- 1984 births
- Living people
- 21st-century American screenwriters
- American male screenwriters
- American male television writers
- American television directors
- American television writers
- American identical twins
- Chapman University alumni
- Film directors from North Carolina
- Filmmaking duos
- American horror film directors
- Place of birth missing (living people)
- Screenwriters from North Carolina
- Screenwriting duos
- American science fiction film directors
- Sibling filmmakers
- American television show creators
- Writers from Durham, North Carolina
- 21st-century American male writers