Taxi Driver (1976)

The film is a brilliant nightmare portrait of Travis Bickle's inner world rather than a New York story. It singles out the subjective camerawork and De Niro's veiled, compelling performance for praise.

The critic finds the film a difficult but essential watch on its 50th anniversary re-release, highlighting Robert De Niro's blistering performance and the twitchy depiction of Seventies New York as key strengths.

The critic calls the film an unflinching plunge into the human soul whose anti-hero Travis Bickle remains painfully relevant, treating him with empathy as a war-scarred, isolated man. They single out Bernard Herrmann’s ominous score and De Niro’s restrained, honest performance as creating an impossibly perfect, evocative tone of dread, pity and New York cool.

The critic praises the film's enduring power to unnerve and rivet audiences decades later. Highlights include the tight, darkly funny script by Paul Schrader, Scorsese's directorial fireworks, and De Niro's wired central performance.

The film remains a powerful and significant work decades later, with its shocking script, De Niro's gutsy performance, and masterful score still making a strong impression. It has become woven into American cultural mythology and its themes of violence and isolation feel increasingly relevant.

The critic calls the film a high-water mark of American cinema and Scorsese's possible finest work, commending its immersive subjectivity through Travis Bickle's perspective, De Niro's performance, Bernard Herrmann's score, and its lasting relevance as a character study and commentary on violence and media.

The critic calls Taxi Driver a cinematic tour de force and one of the most significant films of 1976. It is praised as a gritty, urgent snapshot of New York’s seedier side that reflects American alienation with unerring accuracy, anchored by Robert De Niro’s compelling performance.

The film is a powerful, frighteningly plausible case history of a quiet loner turning violent, with excellent credit to Scorsese and a smash performance by De Niro. It singles out the quasi-documentary look, Herrmann's score, and the brutal climactic sequence.

The critic praises Taxi Driver as a powerful, enduring classic about madness and alienation in the city, highlighting its immersive atmosphere, De Niro's performance, and Scorsese's direction despite its divisive legacy and potential misreadings as glorifying violence.

Scorsese's film offers one of the most compelling portraits of a psychotic personality on screen, with De Niro superb in the lead. The review highlights the screenplay's case-history approach and the violent intensity of the climax.

The critic calls it an extraordinary film with De Niro delivering a powerhouse performance as Travis Bickle. She praises the supporting cast, cinematography using natural light, and the score for capturing the protagonist's shifting moods.

The critic calls Taxi Driver a deeply nuanced masterpiece that portrays New York City itself as a looming monster spawning sociopathic killers. They single out its prescient vision of urban decay and the lush, impressionistic beauty of its nocturnal street photography for praise.

The critic finds the film a surreal, nightmarish portrayal of pathological isolation that holds up artistically and feels relevant today; praises Scorsese’s direction, De Niro’s performance, and Schrader’s script for painting Bickle’s portrait without didacticism.

The critic highlights Taxi Driver's blood-drenched finale as a horrifying fever dream that remains powerfully shocking due to its gritty realism and matter-of-fact violence. They praise Scorsese's detached, unflinching approach to depicting the ugliness of brutality as a standout element.

The critic finds Taxi Driver still disturbingly contemporary half a century later, with its portrayal of incoherent personal politics and lonely rage feeling chillingly familiar in the present. De Niro's performance is singled out for vividly conveying the character's mixed-up motivations without exploitation.

The critic argues that Taxi Driver is already the Taxi Driver for the age of Trump and incels, eerily prescient in its depiction of lonely, entitled male rage. The surreal ending and themes of rejection and violence are highlighted as particularly resonant and unsettling today.