Synopsis for
Taxi Driver (1976) More at IMDbPro »

Travis Bickle (De Niro), who claims to be an honorably discharged Marine (it is implied that he is a Vietnam Veteran) is a lonely and depressed young man of 26. His origins are unknown. He sends his parents cards, lying about his life and saying he works with the Secret Service. He settles in Manhattan where he becomes a night time taxi driver due to chronic insomnia.[1] 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.

Bickle becomes interested in Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), a campaign volunteer for New York Senator Charles Palantine, who is running for the presidential nomination and is promising dramatic social change. She is initially intrigued by Bickle and agrees to a date with him after he flirts with her over coffee and sympathizes with her own apparent loneliness. She compares him to a character in the Kris Kristofferson song "The Pilgrim." On their date, however, Bickle is clueless about how to treat a woman and thinks it would be a good idea to take her to a Swedish sex education film (Language of Love). Offended, she leaves him and takes a taxi home alone. The next day he tries to reconcile with Betsy, phoning her and sending her flowers, but all of his attempts are in vain.[1]

Rejected and depressed, 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 a number of pistols from an illegal dealer (Steven Prince) and practices a menacing speech in the mirror, while pulling out a pistol that he attached to a home-made sliding action holster on his right arm ("You talkin' to me?"). He develops an ominously intense interest in Senator Palantine's public appearances and it seems that he somehow blames the presidential hopeful for his own failure at wooing Betsy and maybe hopes to include her boss in his growing list of targets. In an accidental warm-up, Bickle randomly walks into a robbery in a run-down grocery and shoots the robber (Nat Grant) in the face; adding to the bizarre violence, the grocery owner (Victor Argo) encourages Bickle (who has no permit for his guns) to flee the scene and then proceeds to club the near-dead stickup man with a steel pole.

Bickle is revolted by what he considers the moral decay around him. One night while on shift, Iris (Jodie Foster), a 12-year-old child prostitute, gets in his cab, attempting to escape her pimp.[1] Shocked by the occurrence Bickle fails to drive off and the pimp, "Sport" (Harvey Keitel), reaches the cab. Sport gives Bickle a crumpled twenty dollar bill, which haunts Travis 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.

Any lingering doubt in the viewer's mind about Bickle's sanity is obliterated when he is suddenly and shockingly shown to be sporting a crude Mohawk haircut at a public rally in which he actually attempts to assassinate Senator Palantine. He is spotted by Secret Service men and flees.[1] Bickle returns to his apartment, then drives to "Alphabet City" (an area of New York's Lower East side consisting of Avenues A through E) where he shoots Sport, before storming into the brothel and killing the bouncer, Sport (who has followed Bickle), and Iris' mafioso customer. He then calmly tries repeatedly to fire a bullet into his own head from under his chin but all the weapons are empty so he resigns himself to resting on a convenient sofa until police arrive on the scene of mayhem and carnage.

A brief epilogue shows Bickle recuperating from the incident. He has received a handwritten letter from Iris' parents who thank him for saving their daughter, and the media hails him as a hero for saving her as well.[1] Bickle blithely returns to his job, where one night one of his fares happens to be Betsy. She comments about his saving of Iris and Bickle's own media fame, yet Bickle denies being any sort of hero. He drops her off without charging her. As he is driving off, he gets a strange look on his face and adjusts his cab's rear view mirror, giving the impression that his irrationality is about to break through again.