While the “what if” game is a common one amongst almost all films due to the nature of the Hollywood machine, Taxi Driver has a particularly gnarly could-have-been: imagine a Brian De Palma picture starring Neil Diamond as Travis Bickle. Fortunately for history, the producers watched a screening of Mean Streets and saw the directorial prowess of Martin Scorsese, as well as the star quality of a young actor named Robert De Niro.

De Niro dove into the role, studying mental illness while pulling twelve-hour shifts as an actual taxi driver for a month prior to shooting. He would also go on to ad-lib the immortal line “You talkin’ to me” in the mirror-posturing scene. The production was fortunate enough to cast their desired “Cybill Shepherd type” when Cybill Shepherd herself agreed to join the cast. Harvey Keitel, Albert Brooks, and Peter Boyle also came onto the project, but thirteen-year-old newcomer, Jodie Foster, as the underage prostitute Iris, made the biggest splash.

When insomniac Vietnam veteran Travis Bickle returns from his tour of duty, he takes a job driving cab around New York during the graveyard shift. His meanderings through the city leave him disgusted with the moral decay plaguing the city. He succumbs to obsession when he makes the acquaintance of a twelve-year-old prostitute named Iris. Determined to help Iris, Travis tries in vain to convince her to return to her parents. Travis’s obsessions also include a Senator’s aide, Betsy (Shepherd), who spurns Travis because of his disturbing behavior.

Travis’s traumas continue to haunt him as he slips deeper and deeper into his isolation. He purchases several handguns from a black-market dealer and uses one to kill a convenience store robber. Foregoing the advice of fellow cabbie Wizard (Boyle) to “get laid, get drunk, and not worry so much,” Travis eventually puts in motion a plan to assassinate the senator. But when his plan goes awry, Travis hunts down Iris for a memorable showdown with her pimp (Keitel), a bouncer, and a customer in a violent climax.

A financial and critical success, Taxi Driver was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and performance nods to both De Niro and Foster. It claimed the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the two leads both took home BAFTAs, including a “Best Newcomer” award for the future Oscar winner Foster. The film itself remains both a cultural and academic staple and is, by and large, considered to be Scorsese’s finest work. It has often been considered to be the first film to address the impact of the Vietnam war on the soldiers who fought in -- and ultimately returned from -- it.