Harry Northup in Taxi Driver (1976)Image via Columbia Pictures
One of the most defining films of the New Hollywood movement of the 1970s remains just as influential today as it ever was. The movie in question is currently streaming for free in the United States on Pluto TV, which leaves audiences who haven’t seen it yet with no excuse. Released in 1976, the film marked the second major collaboration between director Martin Scorsese and star Robert De Niro. Its production troubles are about as legendary as its reputation. The film left the studio aghast at its portrayal of violence and vengeance, and the pressure to stay true to his vision caused Scorsese tremendous mental turmoil. The studio mandated a key change to Paul Schrader‘s original script, fearing the movie might incite race riots. Among the most infamous urban legends about the film is that Scorsese was nearly driven to commit a heinous crime after he became convinced that the film was being butchered beyond recognition by the studio.
Superfan Quentin Tarantino certainly believes that this happened, although both Scorsese and his filmmaker friends have told various versions of the story over the years. Tarantino wrote extensively about the movie in his quasi-memoir, “Cinema Speculation”. He noted the exact scene in which the film went from being a portrait of a goofy guy to “playing like a real movie” — when the teen prostitute jumps into the protagonist’s car and he doesn’t help her. In a chat with Sky Movies, Tarantino said, “I actually do feel that it may be the greatest first-person character study ever committed to film. I mean, I really actually can’t even think of a second, or a third or a fourth that can even come into contention with it.”
Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
🪜Parasite
🌀Everything Everywhere
☢️Oppenheimer
🐦Birdman
🪙No Country for Old Men
01
What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.
02
Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?
03
How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
04
What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
05
What do you want from a film’s ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
06
Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.
07
What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
08
What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
09
How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
10
What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
Parasite
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.
Oppenheimer
You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
Birdman
You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
No Country for Old Men
You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
The Landmark Classic Inspired Todd Phillips’ ‘Joker’
We’re talking, of course, about the iconic neo-noir thriller Taxi Driver. Also featuring Jodie Foster and Harvey Keitel, the movie was a critical and commercial hit. It grossed nearly $30 million against a reported budget of $2 million, and received four nominations at the Oscars. Taxi Driver also won the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and is now sitting at a “Certified Fresh” 89% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. Scorsese and De Niro went on to work together on several classics, such as Casino, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, and most recently, The Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon. You can watch Taxi Driver for free on Pluto TV, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
