Who wrote the screenplay for Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver?

Paul Schrader wrote the screenplay for Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver.

The screenplay follows Travis Bickle, a lonely and increasingly disturbed New York taxi driver played by Robert De Niro. Its first-person perspective presents Travis’s alienation and distorted view of the city rather than offering a conventional crime-story viewpoint.

Schrader wrote the script during a period of personal isolation and described its central character as an outlet for feelings of loneliness and disconnection. Scorsese and De Niro transformed the screenplay into a stark film marked by Bernard Herrmann’s final score and Michael Chapman’s cinematography.

Taxi Driver premiered at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d’Or. Schrader later continued writing major American films, including Raging Bull, another important collaboration with Scorsese.