Taxi Driver is a 1976 film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The movie is set in New York City, soon after the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro and features Albert Brooks, Harvey Keitel, Leonard Harris, Peter Boyle, Cybill Shepherd, and a young Jodie Foster. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including "Best Picture", and won the Palme d'Or at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival.

Travis Bickle (De Niro) is a lonely and depressed young man of 26. His origins are unknown. He occasionally sends his parents cards, lying about his life and saying he works for the government on a secret project. He settles in Manhattan, where he becomes a night time taxi driver due to chronic insomnia. Bickle spends his restless days in seedy porn theaters and works 12 or 14 hour shifts during the evening and night time hours carrying passengers among all five boroughs of New York City. He keeps a diary which is used as narration throughout the film. An honorably discharged Marine, it is implied that he is a Vietnam veteran; he keeps a charred Viet Cong flag in his squalid apartment and has a large scar on his back.

Bickle becomes interested in Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), a campaign volunteer for fictional New York Senator Charles Palantine (Leonard Harris), who is running for the presidential nomination and is promising dramatic social change. After watching her from his taxi through the windows of Palentine's campaign office, Bickle enters the campaign office asking to volunteer as a pretext to talk with Betsy and convinces her to go out for coffee. Over the coffee, Betsy agrees to go to a movie with Bickle. She says he reminds her of a line in a Kris Kristofferson song "The Pilgrim, Chapter 33": "He's a prophet and a pusher, partly truth, partly fiction - a walking contradiction." On their date, Bickle takes her to a Swedish sex education film (Language of Love). She is offended and leaves him, taking a taxi home alone. The next day he tries to reconcile with Betsy, phoning her and sending her flowers, but he does not succeed.

Bickle's thoughts begin to turn violent. Disgusted by the petty street crime (especially prostitution) that he witnesses while driving through the city, he now finds a focus for his frustration and begins a program of intense physical training. He buys four pistols from an illegal dealer, Easy Andy (Steven Prince). In front of a mirror, while pulling out a pistol that he attached to a home-made sliding action holster on his right arm, he practices his now-famous saying: "You talkin' to me?" He develops an interest in Senator Palantine's public appearances. In an accidental warm-up, Bickle randomly walks into a robbery in a run-down grocery and shoots the robber (Nat Grant) in the neck; Bickle expresses worry because he has no permit for his gun but the grocery owner (Victor Argo) encourages him to flee the scene and then proceeds to club the near-dead stickup man with a steel pole.



One night while on shift, Iris (Jodie Foster), a 12-year-old child prostitute, gets in his cab, attempting to escape her pimp. Shocked by the occurrence, Bickle fails to drive off and the pimp, "Sport" (Harvey Keitel), reaches the taxi. Sport gives Bickle a crumpled twenty-dollar bill, which haunts Bickle with the memory of his failure to help. Later seeing Iris on the street he pays for her time, although he does not have sex with her and instead tries to convince her to leave this way of life behind. The next day, they meet for breakfast, and Bickle becomes obsessed with saving this naïve child-woman, who thinks hanging out with hookers, pimps, and drug dealers is more 'hip' than dating young boys and going to school.

Bickle acquires a Mohawk haircut and attends a public rally where he attempts to assassinate Senator Palantine. Secret Service men notice him and Bickle flees. Bickle returns to his apartment and then drives to Alphabet City, where he shoots Sport in the abdomen, after which he storms into the brothel and kills the bouncer. After the wounded Sport confronts Bickle, Bickle shoots him again fatally as well as Iris' mafioso customer. Bickle receives several shots himself. He then tries repeatedly to fire a bullet into his own head from under his chin, but all his weapons are empty, so he resigns himself to resting on a sofa until police arrive on the scene.

The film's dénouement shows Bickle recuperating from the incident. He has received a handwritten letter from Iris's parents who thank him for saving their daughter, and the media hail him as a hero for saving her. Bickle returns to his job, where one night one of his fares happens to be Betsy. She comments on his saving Iris and his media fame, but Bickle denies being any sort of hero. He drops her off without charging her, and as he drives off, he hears a small, piercing noise which prompts him to stare at an unseen object in his taxi's rearview mirror.

Quentin Tarantino On Taxi Driver