Classics: Taxi Driver - 50th Anniversary

Fifty years after its premiere, Taxi Driver still feels uncomfortably close to home. The film, which tells the story of Travis Bickle, a mentally unstable veteran working as a night-time taxi driver in New York, tackles themes that remain all too familiar today: urban loneliness, political frustration, toxic masculinity and the radicalisation of people who feel invisible.

Bickle craves meaning and recognition, but seeks them in destructive ways — a mechanism that, in an age of online echo chambers and social alienation, perhaps feels even more relevant than it did in 1976. With its mesmerising night-time imagery, Bernard Herrmann’s menacing soundtrack and uncompromising portrayal of violence and decay, Taxi Driver is not only a milestone in American cinema, but also a film that continues to challenge us to this day.