Film

Taxi Driver

A portrait of a man quietly coming apart while everyone around him assumes he's just quiet. Scorsese and Schrader turn 1970s New York into a fever, all neon and steam, and De Niro's Travis Bickle is one of cinema's great slow-motion warnings. It's mesmerizing, unsettling, and not remotely a comfort watch — essential for anyone who wants to understand where modern character studies of alienated men come from.

TMDb rating8.1

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Joker2019

Phoenix's Arthur Fleck is Travis Bickle's most explicit descendant — same rejection, same delusion of purpose, same city that won't look at him. Scorsese even produced early drafts.

But The comic-book scaffolding and grand finale push it toward myth-making Taxi Driver never bothers with.

Joker poster

Fight Club1999

Another unraveling narrator convinced he alone sees the rot underneath civilization, another eruption of violence dressed up as clarity. Sharper jokes, same sickness.

But Fincher's slicker, funnier register and famous twist make it a very different animal tonally.

Fight Club poster

Nightcrawler2014

Gyllenhaal's Lou Bloom is Travis's nocturnal cousin — hollow-eyed, self-mythologizing, prowling a city at night for something to fix his emptiness.

But Colder and more calculating than Bickle; there's less pity to be had here, by design.

Nightcrawler poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Le Samouraï1967

Melville's existential loner, alone in his room and alone on the job, is a direct visual ancestor of Bickle — Scorsese has cited this film's cold, ritualistic urban isolation as a touchstone.

A near-silent French hitman moves through a beautiful, indifferent city with the same monastic isolation as Travis, years before Scorsese's own camera learned to love empty streets.

But Glacially cool and almost wordless — patience required, and there's none of Bickle's raw emotional mess.

Le Samouraï poster
More like this (8)

American Psycho2000

Another unreliable narrator seething under a polished surface, another meditation on masculinity curdling into violence and delusion.

But It's satire first, horror-comedy second — a very different tonal register from Scorsese's grimy sincerity.

American Psycho poster

The King of Comedy1982

De Niro and Scorsese again, this time turning obsession and rejection into agonizing comedy instead of violence. Just as unnerving in its own way.

But Slower, funnier, and squirmier rather than dangerous — a mirror image rather than a companion piece.

The King of Comedy poster

Raging Bull1980

The other great De Niro/Scorsese portrait of a man destroying himself from the inside, shot in gorgeous, brutal black and white.

But Boxing is the arena here, not the streets, and the self-destruction is turned inward rather than out.

Raging Bull poster

Falling Down1993

An ordinary man snaps under the pressure of a city that seems designed to grind him down, and the results are just as pointed and uncomfortable.

But Broader and more overtly satirical, with less of the eerie psychological interiority Scorsese builds.

Falling Down poster

Drive2011

A quiet, watchful driver moving through a city at night, violence simmering just under a calm surface — the same nocturnal loneliness in a neon jacket.

But Style and mood carry it more than character study; dialogue is sparse where Taxi Driver is confessional.

Drive poster

Collateral2004

A cabbie's night shift spirals into something far more dangerous, and Los Angeles after dark gets the same hypnotic, alienated treatment New York got here.

But More conventional thriller mechanics; less interested in getting inside its driver's head.

Collateral poster

Grizzly Man2005

Both are studies of a person who mistakes personal delusion for moral clarity, narrating their own righteousness right up to the violent end — one fictional, one heartbreakingly real.

Herzog's documentary about a real man convinced he alone understood something the rest of the world had missed, filming his own descent into a mission that ends in disaster.

But It's a documentary about an actual death — sober, sad, and free of Scorsese's stylistic adrenaline.

Grizzly Man poster

BoJack Horseman2014

Same engine as Bickle — a self-image as a would-be savior colliding constantly with the damage the person actually causes — just relocated from grimy realism into surreal, big-hearted comedy.

An animated tragicomedy about a man who cannot stop hurting himself and everyone near him while genuinely believing he's trying to be good.

But Cartoon horses and studio-sitcom jokes are about as far from gritty 1970s New York as tone can travel.

BoJack Horseman poster

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Recommended by

First Reformed, A Clockwork Orange, Fight Club, Nightcrawler, Death Wish, The Searchers, Léon: The Professional, Taxi, Midnight Cowboy, Falling Down, Ms .45, Cape Fear, Joker, Diary of a Country Priest, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, Super, Klute, The Machinist, NHK ni Youkoso!, You Were Never Really Here, Mona Lisa, Naked