Ross Duffer

The Duffer Brothers founded the production company Upside Down Pictures, which is in an overall deal with Paramount.

• Name — Matt and Ross Duffer • Landscape — yes • Born — 15 February 1984 • Spouse — Ross: Matt: • Birthplace — Durham, North Carolina, U.S. • Education — Chapman University (BFA) • Occupation — * Writers • directors • producers • Years Active — 2005–present • Known for — Stranger Things

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, and Allen Pace Duffer Jr. (born 1946), a film buff and Research Triangle Institute project director. They began making films in the third grade, using a Hi8 video camera that was a gift from their parents. They attended the Duke School for Children 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. 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, 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.

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. The brothers directed Hidden, which was released in 2015. Next they were hired as writers and producers for the Fox television series Wayward Pines.

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. The show is set in 1980s Indiana and is an homage to 1980s pop culture, 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. It was released on July 15, 2016, to overwhelming praise, and began to develop a cult following online. On September 30, 2019, Netflix announced it had signed the Duffers for additional films and television shows over the coming years. In March 2021, the duo announced they would team up with Spielberg to adapt Stephen King's and Peter Straub's The Talisman as a Netflix series. They would both be executive producers via Amblin Partners and Monkey Massacre and hired Curtis Gwinn, who worked as a writer-executive producer on Stranger Things, to act as writer and showrunner of the project. Following the premiere of the fourth season of Stranger Things in July 2022, the Duffers launched the production company Upside Down Pictures, named after the fictional dimension in Stranger Things. The studio 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 animated spin-off Tales from '85. As of 2024, they were also the executive producers of The Boroughs, described as a supernatural drama set in a retirement community in the New Mexico desert.

In August 2025, it was announced that the brothers and their company would be signing a four-year deal at Paramount, which resulted 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 were not able to do while signed with Netflix.

Matt has two children with his fiancée, Sarah Hindsgaul; Winona Ryder is the godmother. 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. In February 2024, Janiak filed for divorce after eight years of marriage.

Film • Year — Title — Directors — Writers • 2015 — Hidden Television • Year — Title — Directors — Writers — Executive producers — Creators — Notes • 2015–2016 — Wayward Pines — Co-Executive — Wrote 4 episodes • 2016–2025 — Stranger Things — Directed 24 episodes; wrote 20 episodes • 2026–present — Stranger Things: Tales from '85 • 2026 — Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen • 2026 — The Boroughs