Shane Stanley

Biography

At sixteen years old, Shane had already received his first Emmy Award for his work on Desperate Passage (1987) which starred Michael Landon. Over the next few years he learned filmmaking under his father Lee Stanley on what became known as The Desperate Passage Series (1988 to 1995) starring Sharon Gless, Edward James Olmos, Marlo Thomas and Louis Gossett Jr.. The self-produced series earned a total of thirty-three Emmy nominations, (winning thirteen) as well as numerous Christopher Awards and CINE Golden Eagles. In 1994, the Stanleys feature film, Street Pirates (1994) was a two-time winner of the CINE Golden Eagle Award for best feature documentary and film editing. In 2001, Shane launched Visual Arts Entertainment, his own production company, most notably credited with Gridiron Gang (2006) starring Dwayne Johnson & Xzibit as well as the critically acclaimed independent film, A Sight for Sore Eyes (2004) with Academy Award nominee, Gary Busey. The film, (produced for under $10,000) marked Shane's directorial debut and went on to win the Gold Special Jury Award at Worldfest Houston, Best Dramatic Short Film at the International Family Film Festival, a Telly Award for Outstanding Achievement in Film and Television as well as two Aurora Awards for writing & directing. The film was also invited to Cannes to compete in the annual international film festival. Other directing credits to his name include Mistrust, starring two-time Golden Globe® and Emmy® Award winner Jane Seymour, Break Even with Tasya Teles, Steve Guttenberg, and Golden Globe® nominee, Joanna Pacula which he also produced with Adam Kane (Prodigal Son, 24: Live Another Day, Heroes). Shane produced and directed the action-comedy, Double Threat starring Matthew Lawrence and Dawn Olivieri (Yellowstone, 1883), which The New York Times listed on their Top 5-Action Movies to Stream Now and was the sole indie feature among Hollywood blockbusters on Amazon Prime's "Top 10 in the US" list remaining there for several weeks and peaking at #4. The film enjoyed similar success on Netflix's world-wide charts, ranking #1 in 16/17 countries the week of its debut and remained on the platform's Top-10 most watched films in the summer of 2024. Shane's action-thriller, Night Train, starring Danielle C. Ryan and Diora Baird premiered on HULU where it reached #1 on the platform and remained in the top spot for an astonishing five weeks in 2023. Night Train is the story of a single mom struggling to make ends meet as a Hollywood teamster who evades capture by a ruthless FBI Agent while running black market medical supplies in her legendary souped-up pickup truck. It also stars Joe Lando, Ivan Sergei, and Joseph D. Reitman.