- Critic Roger Ebert so admired him that he created the "Stanton-Walsh Rule," which states that "no movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad." Ebert later admitted that Dream a Little Dream (1989), in which Stanton appeared, was a "clear violation" of this rule.
- Was tied up and pistol-whipped at his home in L.A. after a robbery. The thieves then took off in the actor's car, but were soon apprehended after the car was traced by a tracking device. Stanton suffered only minor injuries. (January 20, 1996)
- Was in a relationship with Rebecca De Mornay from 1981 to 1983.
- Prior to 1971, he was credited in films and on TV as Dean Stanton so as to avoid any confusion with character actor Harry Stanton, both of whom would appear together in the "Petticoat Junction" episode One of Our Chickens Is Missing (1969). Harry Dean Stanton later costarred in The Green Mile (1999), which has a character named Dean Stanton.
- He has appeared in five films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: How the West Was Won (1962), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), The Godfather Part II (1974) and Alien (1979).
- As of 2014, had appeared in three films that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: How the West Was Won (1962), The Godfather Part II (1974) and The Green Mile (1999). Of those, only The Godfather Part II (1974) won in the category.
- He starred in two consecutive films written by Sam Shepard: Paris, Texas (1984) and Fool for Love (1985). As it happened, he and Shepard died less than two months apart.
- He has appeared in two films which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival: Paris, Texas (1984) and Wild at Heart (1990).
- Had a small role as a jail guard in the 1978 Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong film Up in Smoke (1978), but his scenes were cut.
- Stanton has been named as a favorite actor by characters in novels by Elmore Leonard. Skip Gibbs, a serial bomber in the novel Freaky Deaky, watches Straight Time (1978) because Stanton is his favorite actor. Two characters in Leonard's novel Maximum Bob chat about how much the novel's title character resembles Stanton, an actor they both admire. Stanton did not appear in the Maximum Bob (1998) TV series, but did have a role in The Big Bounce (2004), also based on an Elmore Leonard novel.
- In an interview with Marc Maron on his WTF Podcast in 2013, Stanton mentioned that he was offered the lead in an unnamed series as a private investigator for director John Carpenter, but turned it down as he didn't want so much work (it wasn't said when this was that the offer or series took place, and it doesn't seem like the series ever got made).
- Member of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 45th Venice International Film Festival in 1988.
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