Taxi Driver

Should you watch Taxi Driver?

Watch Taxi Driver if you want the movie Joker and Fight Club are always compared to: Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle, Martin Scorsese's 1976 New York, and a 114-minute R-rated character study about loneliness turning dangerous. It won the Palme d'Or and still works as cinema, but it is grim, racist in the voice of its narrator, and built around adult subject matter that includes a child in prostitution. If you already like Joker, American Psycho, or Scorsese's darker work, this is a clear yes. If you want a comforting classic, it is not that. Check the Watch providers section on this page for current streaming, rental, or purchase options in your region.

Why watch this movie?

Taxi Driver (1976) is Martin Scorsese's New York character study about Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), an insomniac cabbie whose loneliness, disgust, and vigilante fantasy curdle in a filthy, indifferent city. Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, and Albert Brooks round out Paul Schrader's script. This page covers TMDB movie ID 103 — the 1976 Columbia film that won the Palme d'Or, runtime 114 minutes, rated R — not later homages, sequels that do not exist, or unrelated films that share the title. If you are searching whether Taxi Driver is worth watching, what Taxi Driver is about, or movies like Taxi Driver, the honest pitch is: a dark, subjective descent that still sits underneath Joker, Fight Club, and almost every lonely-antihero movie that followed. It is not a light classic, and it is not an action movie that happens to use a taxi.

Who should watch it?

Taxi Driver is a strong pick if you want the classic version of the alienated urban antihero. It is especially recommended if you like Joker for social neglect turning into violence, Fight Club for rage and identity fracture, or American Psycho for a polished surface hiding something monstrous. Scorsese fans coming from GoodFellas will find a slower, more interior film. Skip it if you need a comforting 1970s classic, cannot sit with racism, violence, and the sexual exploitation of a child character as subject matter (Foster's Iris is a child prostitute; the film is rated R and built for adults), or want a plotty crime thriller with a clean moral. The 114-minute runtime is manageable; the discomfort is the point.

Pros

• What Taxi Driver is about, in plain terms: a lonely New York cab driver talks to himself, watches the city rot, and drifts toward vigilante violence — a character study, not a heist or a buddy-cop movie.
• Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle, Bernard Herrmann's score, and Scorsese's New York still define the lonely-antihero template that Joker and Fight Club keep getting compared to.
• Palme d'Or winner with durable search demand around 'Taxi Driver explained,' 'is Taxi Driver worth watching,' and 'movies like Taxi Driver.'
• Already named on GoMovie.ai's movies like Joker and movies like Fight Club hubs, so unique page text turns those next-watch clicks into a ranking destination.
• A compact 114-minute runtime that still feels like a full descent rather than a padded prestige drama.

Cons

• Easy to confuse with later 'taxi driver' titles or with Scorsese's flashier crime films; this page is the 1976 Martin Scorsese film, TMDB movie ID 103, starring Robert De Niro.
• Rated R for strong violence, language, and sexual content involving a child character in a prostitution storyline. It is not a casual or young-teen watch.
• Travis's narration includes racist and misogynist attitudes that the film observes rather than sanitizes; some viewers find that exhausting or unwatchable.
• The pace is interior and nocturnal. If you wanted GoodFellas energy or a conventional thriller plot, this will feel slow.
• Streaming and rental availability vary by region; check the Watch providers section on this page rather than assuming a specific service.

If you liked this movie

If you are looking for movies like Taxi Driver, start with Joker for the most direct modern descendant, then Fight Club and American Psycho for alienated men whose inner monologue becomes the movie. The Machinist and Black Swan stay inside crumbling minds in a tighter, more stylized way. The Dark Knight widens similar questions about chaos, cities, and vigilantes into a crime-epic scale, and GoodFellas is the Scorsese companion if you want his kinetic crime mode instead of this lonely one. Together they cover what people usually mean by movies like Taxi Driver: isolation, urban decay, and characters who decide they are the solution to a city that will not look at them.