We ended last year by saying goodbye to the (all grown-up) kids of Stranger Things, but that doesn’t mean the actors behind the roles are going away anytime soon. The cast is all over the 2026 movie schedule, but this week belongs to Caleb McLaughlin, whose movie with 84% on Rotten Tomatoes just shot to the top of the Netflix charts.
With a Netflix subscription, we’ve watched McLaughlin grow up as Lucas Sinclair for almost a decade, but now that Stranger Things is over, he’s spreading his wings with his own projects outside of Hawkins. The latest is an animated movie called Goat, which just arrived on Netflix on Thursday, and it’s already the No.1 movie.
The movie comes from Sony Pictures Animation, which famously made the Spider-Verse movies and KPop Demon Hunters. Goat is basically an underdog basketball movie except it follows an anthropomorphic goat who idolizes a similar sport called roarball and the player Jett, who is a female panther. After growing up a fan, he finds himself as the newest recruit of her team.
In the world of Goat, while the teams are co-ed, predators are the only animals who play roarball, so when Caleb McLaughlin’s Will Harris gets added to the Thorns, all eyes are on him. The movie came out in theaters back in February, and it was No. 1 during its second week, but surely a lot of families who missed out seeing it on the big screen are tuning in now.
It’s also got very positive Rotten Tomatoes scores that applaud it for its hyperkinetic animation style, voice acting performances and family-friendly storyline. Critics gave it an 84% while audiences liked it even more, as it has a 93% on the popcornmeter. It also earned an A CinemaScore, which is on par with Hoppers and above The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’s A-.
The movie was produced and inspired by the career of Stephen Curry. The basketball legend also voices the role of Lenny Williamson, who is a giraffe on the Thorns. Caleb McLaughlin’s new movie also involves the voice talents of Gabrielle Union, Aaron Pierre, Nicola Coughlan, Nick Kroll, Patton Oswalt and even his Stranger Things co-star David Harbour – he plays the rhinoceros player on Thorns named Archie. Gotta love this Stranger Things reunion!
It’s great to see the 24-year-old Stranger Things actor killing it now that the hit Netflix show is done for good. Right now, he’s also filming a thriller (also for Netflix) helmed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt called 2034. It’ll also star Rachel McAdams, Jeff Daniels and Joel Edgerton.
As far as his Stranger Things co-stars go, Finn Wolfhard has a voice role in Bong Joon Ho’s upcoming animated feature debut, Millie Bobby Brown will be in Enola Holmes 3 this July, Gaten Matarazzo was just in Andy Serkis’s Animal Farm movie and is currently filming Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Octet, and Sadie Sink is in Spider-Man: Brand New Day this summer.
So, they're all continuing to kill it, and you can see McLaughlin's latest project on Netflix right now.
