Taxi Driver Resources

This is a major center for technical info about Taxi Driver, including trivia, cast lists, etc.

Rotten Tomatoes collects all the reviews of movies, old and new. Naturally, the reviews for Taxi Driver are, on the whole, pretty rave.

American Movie Classics provides its take on Scorsese's masterpiece (or, one of his masterpieces).

TCM's Taxi Driver page serves up some movie clips along with the original trailer and some technical details about the movie.

It didn't take too long for Roger Ebert to love this movie. He was a big fan right off the bat. Ebert hated the ultra-violence in the earlier movie A Clockwork Orange (dir. Stanley Kubrick), but thought it was extremely effective in Taxi Driver, since it's a deeper character study.

Scorsese discusses his feelings about the movie with Ebert, explaining why he considers Taxi Driver to be a feminist statement, what the Catholic references in the film are, and how De Niro prepped for the role by working as an actual cabbie.

Derek Malcolm's review is extremely positive, calling the movie, "a tour de force which doesn't so much explain America as reflect part of it with unerring accuracy."

This interview contains really interesting revelations—like Harvey Keitel discussing how he worked with an actual pimp to prepare for the role. Despite not being mentioned in the title, Paul Schrader and Julia Phillips talk here too.

De Niro talks about a potential Taxi Driver sequel (something Paul Schrader was initially against) and the virtues of shooting movies quickly instead of doing lots of takes.

Schrader delves into the dark place he was in when writing Taxi Driver—acting like Travis Bickle, hanging out in porn theaters, and living in his car.

Scorsese talks about the challenges he faced in making the movie, like a New York garbage workers strike that filled the streets with piled up trash. He also says New York isn't a great place for a young person to go be an artist anymore—it's too expensive.

The original trailer touts De Niro's achievements—like his prior performances in Bang the Drum, Slowly and The Godfather: Part II.

This might be the most famous moment in the movie, an iconic scene parodied and referenced over and over and over again.

Since Travis is trying to talk to a child, it makes his mission even more difficult (especially in his mentally unbalanced state).

Foster explains how Martin Scorsese got her involved in Taxi Driver, and how it convinced her that being an actress was a worthwhile pursuit.

Tarantino pays tribute to the movie as the greatest first-person character study of all-time, in addition to repeating a rumor about how Scorsese reacted when he heard the MPAA wanted to give Taxi Driver an X rating.

Scorsese describes the significance of the scene in which Sport sweet-talks Iris, claiming he loves her. In his analysis, he takes a decidedly different and unexpected tack—probably not what you were thinking.

Herrmann's theme blends a romantic and somewhat sleazy surface with a darker and potentially violent undercurrent—just like the movie's version of NYC.

This poster has Bickle in psycho mode, sporting his new Mohawk, and waiting to try to shoot Palantine.

This pre-Mohawk Bickle still looks pretty intense, staring at us from his taxi and wearing his Marine jacket.

Wizard looks like a bald and rumpled dude—possibly likeable.

As a twelve-year-old playing a twelve-year-old prostitute, Foster's heavy eye-shadow accentuated how young she really is.

As Betsy, Shepherd looks like a savvy young political campaign worker who knows what she wants.

Albert Brooks looks put together and intelligent, and like an entirely different species from Travis Bickle.

Note that the statue behind Palantine has its arms raised in the exact same way as Palantine does.

Keitel looks pretty ripped, even though he's a sleaze-ball.

Here's the young, bespectacled Schrader who wrote Taxi Driver.

The old Schrader is much the Dutch-American elder statesman of screenwriting in this photo.

A young, bearded and longhaired Scorsese hangs with De Niro outside his cab.