In recognition of Carruth's idiosyncratic and, at times, bizarre filmmaking technique, director Steven Soderbergh told Entertainment Weekly, "I view Shane as the illegitimate offspring of David Lynch and James Cameron.

[3] For his independent film Primer, Carruth wrote, directed, produced, and performed one of the two main roles; he also composed the score.

[6] Keith Kimbell wrote that it was the "most anticipated (and most difficult to describe) film in competition", and "most critics couldn't stop talking about it".

In 2009, David Sullivan, one of the leads in Primer, tweeted that "Shane Carruth's next project, A Topiary, is in the early stages of pre-production".

"[11] However, the film (which Entertainment Weekly described as "a sci-fi epic about a group of kids who build a giant, animal-like creature") stalled, and in early 2013, Carruth told EW that it was "the thing I basically wasted my whole life on.

"[3] Carruth no longer pursues the project; some VFX test footage of the film is visible in Upstream Color in a scene when a character is examining the video for technical flaws.

[13] On August 12, 2015, it was reported that the film was in pre-production,[14] and its ensemble cast was announced in November 2015; it would include Jeff Goldblum, Anne Hathaway, Keanu Reeves, Tom Holland, Daniel Radcliffe, Chloë Grace Moretz, Asa Butterfield, and Abraham Attah.

[21][22] In 2018, Carruth starred in the psychological thriller The Dead Center about a hospital psychiatrist whose own sanity is pushed to the edge when a frightened amnesiac patient insists that he has died and brought something terrible back from the other side.