Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese’s towering cinematic achievement starring Robert De Niro as alienated New York City cabbie Travis Bickle, turns 50 this month. Widely considered to rank among the greatest films of the 1970s, the powerfully bleak neo-noir’s half-century milestone has been marked by everything from screenwriter Paul Schrader branding Bickle as the original incel to Fresh Air‘s fascinating compendium of archival interviews with Scorsese, Schrader and actors Harvey Keitel, Cybill Shepherd, Jodie Foster, and Albert Brooks.
But so far at least, there haven’t been any newly-restored prints, expanded editions, or retooled trailers like The Godfather II received for its 50th anniversary in 2024. Fans yearning for a jolt of three-minute nostalgia can always revisit the original 35mm film trailer from 1976 on YouTube. Opening with Bickle’s yellow cab cruising through New York’s steamy streets, the narrator heralds the young De Niro’s star turns in Bang The Drum Slowly, Mean Streets, and The Godfather II before aptly describing his Taxi Driver performance as “a terrifying portrait of life on the edge of madness.”
The old-school trailer does a prescient job of including scenes that have long been seared into our collective consciousness, including the famed “You talkin’ to me?” monologue and Bickle telling Senator Charles Palantine, who has somehow ended up in his cab, “This city is like an open sewer, it’s full of filth and scum.” There are also snippets of Bickle practicing a gun draw in his dingy apartment, creeping out a Secret Service agent at a Palantine rally, awkwardly flirting with campaign volunteer Cybill Shepherd, and having lunch with Jodie Foster’s child prostitute, who memorably tells him, “I don’t know who’s weirder, you or me.” Revisit the full trailer below, or watchTaxi Driver on HBO Max and other streaming platforms now.
