Taxi Driver

"On every street in every city in this country, there's a nobody who dreams of being somebody. He's a lonely forgotten man desperate to prove that he's alive."

1976 1h 54m EN

🙌

8.1

BANGER

★8.1TMDB · 13,853

CrimeDrama

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Suffering from insomnia, disturbed loner Travis Bickle takes a job as a New York City cabbie, haunting the streets nightly, growing increasingly detached from reality as he dreams of cleaning up the filthy city.

“On every street in every city in this country, there's a nobody who dreams of being somebody. He's a lonely forgotten man desperate to prove that he's alive.”

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Where to watch · US

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Cast

Robert De Niro
Travis Bickle
Jodie Foster
Iris
Cybill Shepherd
Betsy
Harvey Keitel
Sport
Peter Boyle
Wizard
Leonard Harris
Charles Palantine
Albert Brooks
Tom
Diahnne Abbott
Concession Girl

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Martin Scorsese
Writers: Paul Schrader
Languages: English, Spanish
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $1.9M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Grossed $29M — a 15.0× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

50 years old — a genuine piece of film history.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 2 languages: English, Spanish.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Martin Scorsese, shot by Michael Chapman. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Bernard Herrmann. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Tom Rolf shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster and Cybill Shepherd carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Martin Scorsese directs. Michael Chapman behind the camera. Bernard Herrmann scores. Tom Rolf cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English, Spanish.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Shot for just $1.9M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
2Grossed $29M — a 15.0× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.
350 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
4Dialogue crosses 2 languages: English, Spanish.
5Directed by Martin Scorsese, shot by Michael Chapman. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
6Original score by Bernard Herrmann. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
7Editor Tom Rolf shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
8Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster and Cybill Shepherd carry the top of the cast.
9Marketing tagline: "On every street in every city in this country, there's a nobody who dreams of being somebody. He's a lonely forgotten man desperate to prove that he's alive.".
10IMDB entry: tt0075314 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
1113,853 TMDB user ratings logged — serious cultural footprint.
12Classified under 35 themes, including "drug dealer", "vietnam veteran", "new york city", "taxi".
13Released under 26 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Michael Chapman
Original score: Bernard Herrmann
Editing: Tom Rolf
Costume design: Ruth Morley
Makeup / hair: Mona Orr
Sound: Rick Alexander
Runtime: 114 min · 1h 54m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $1,900,000
Box office: $28,579,636
Return: 1504% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Taxi Driver (1976)

Awards

Palme d'Or

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Martin Scorsese

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Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

Ian Beale2017-02-13
★ 10/10
Social outcast with a mohawk goes nutzoid Porn obsessed loner, Travis Bickle, is a cabbie in New York. The story tells of his gradual descent into madness brought on by his inability to relate to those around him and a feeling of a lack of worth. Travis is essentially invisible - of no importance. Walton's self imposed isolation preferable to getting along with the scum around him. One day he decides to change all of that and become a somebody by murdering a politician. This nobody with the superiority complex has gone off the rails, for certain and it can only lead to bloodshed. A lot of it will be his own.
David2020-02-09
★ 10/10
Taxi Driver has had many things said about it, and I don't wish to add to all that but it is the yardstick I measure all other films by, it is by far my favourite of all the films I have ever watched. It's brutal honesty and use of themes such as paranoia, mental health issues, and society degradation make it a film that has been imitated, and referenced since its opening in cinemas back in 1976. Robert De Niro puts in a tour-de-force performance as Travis Bickle, a Vietnam War veteran with symptoms of PTSD and paranoia, who becomes a New York City taxi driver because of his inability to sleep. Travis is one who is at odds with society, fed up with pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, and all the other scum of the earth, he slowly works himself in his sleep deprived and drugged state to become a one man army ready to kill anyone he believes to be part of the problem. His interactions with other cabbies, Betsy (Shepherd) a Presidential Candidate campaign worker, Iris a teenage prostitute (Foster), and her Pimp “Sport” (Keitel) fuels his destructive mission to rid New York City of its problems. His attempt at normalcy with Betsy, by taking her on date to a movie that disagrees with her sensibilities ends in disaster, mostly due to Travis’ supposed naivety about what is considered appropriate and tasteful entertainment. While plying his nightly trade as a NYC cabbie, he has some unusual encounters, including a fare from a fairly psychotically jealous man showing Travis the place where the man’s wife is cheating on him, and then a short encounter with Iris who gets in his cab, and then forced out by Sport, who throws Travis a dirty crumpled up twenty dollar note for the trouble, Travis then makes it his mission to rescue Iris from her situation while also making a menace of himself to the visiting Presidential candidate. This film is still relevant in these times, as social media, and other such technological & society advancements have brought about a new degradation of values, with many wanting their fifteen minutes of fame by any means necessary, which now brings with it many who sell their souls to attain notoriety. I love De Niro's performance as Travis, its one that has many facets to it, in it is a man who is angry, naive, sleep deprived, lonely, a sociopath, and a killer. A scene in the Presidential campaign office where he is rebuffed by Betsy due to the terrible date experience, and ushered, and menaced by the opportunistic & snotty campaign co-worker Tom (Brooks), shows the range of De Niro's performance as he goes from apologetic, and sheepish to angry, and ready to fight. De Niro was nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for this role. The presentation on blu-ray is a solid one, PQ is nice, skin tones not waxy, and the AQ allowing the score, and surrounding noise subtleties to really shine through, it's very well handled for a source filmed in the mid 70's
CinemaSerf2023-06-03
★ 7/10
Robert De Niro is outstanding in this dark and gritty depiction of former marine "Travis Bickle". He spends his time, alone, driving his cab at night then watching seedy movies during the day. This relentless cycle is broken when he takes a shine to "Betsy" (Cybill Shepherd), a campaign worker for a would be US Presidential candidate. There is a glimmer of hope for him, as she agrees to go out with him for a movie - but when he takes her to his usual haunt for a Swedish film that perhaps wasn't quite Ingmar Bergman, he ends up back at square one. Simultaneously, he takes a more protective interest in the young "iris" (Jodie Foster) - a teenage hooker who is being used abused by her pimp, and to that end he acquires some firearms with which he is perfectly proficient, and so finally starts to see a purpose for his hitherto rather rudderness existence. Director Martin Scorsese and veteran scorer Bernard Hermann have created a wonderfully convincing and evocative scenario emphasising the seediness of a night time New York in which De Niro is able to thrive as few other actors could. He exudes a sense of helplessness but also of decency; he has integrity almost in spite of the indifference of his city, his peers - and by the end, I was firmly in his corner. If you can see it up on a big screen, then do so - it lends a great deal to this wonderfully atmospheric and potent piece of cinema.