Taxi Driver (1976)

Taxi Driver is not a fun night at the movies, and it doesn’t want to be. It asks you to sit inside the head of a lonely, unwell man for 114 minutes, and some people simply won’t want to. Betsy is barely a character, more of an idea Travis has about her, and the ending is so ambiguous that people still argue about what’s real. That’s the hard part. The rest is close to perfect. Robert De Niro makes Travis polite, awkward and quietly frightening, sometimes in the same sentence, and his first date with Betsy is one of the most painful social disasters ever filmed. Jodie Foster plays Iris as someone far too young for the world she’s trapped in, and the movie treats that with real seriousness. Scorsese shoots New York at night like steam is rising off the whole city. A 9.3 because it’s uncomfortable on purpose and it never once looks away. $293 says you sit through the credits in complete silence, then go for a long walk.

What works: Robert De Niro’s slow, unnerving unraveling as Travis, and a nighttime New York that feels hot, wet and dangerous.

What doesn’t: Betsy is a sketch rather than a person, and the ambiguous ending can feel like the movie dodging its own question.

Who it’s for: Viewers ready for a heavy character study who want to see where a lot of modern crime movies got their ideas.