--- title: Taxi Driver at 40: The Real Crime That Inspired the Movie description: Travis Bickle's diary was a ripped-from-the-headlines take on a real would-be-assassin canonical: https://time.com/4202693/taxi-driver-arthur-bremer-history/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-02-08T15:00:25.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T14:38:54.680Z article:section: History og:title: The Real Crime That Inspired 'Taxi Driver' og:description: The movie was released 40 years ago, on Feb. 8, 1976 og:url: https://time.com/4202693/taxi-driver-arthur-bremer-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf15193faa9ca37c2/69887b9ce20a87bbeea8f4f9/taxi-driver.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Robert De Niro In 'Taxi Driver' og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Real Crime That Inspired 'Taxi Driver' twitter:description: The movie was released 40 years ago, on Feb. 8, 1976 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf15193faa9ca37c2/69887b9ce20a87bbeea8f4f9/taxi-driver.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Real Crime That Inspired _Taxi Driver_  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Feb 8, 2016 3:00 PM UTC  Robert De Niro in a scene from the film 'Taxi Driver', 1976. Robert De Niro in a scene from the film 'Taxi Driver', 1976.Archive Photos—Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Feb 8, 2016 3:00 PM UTC Though Martin Scorsese’s _Taxi Driver_ was later selected by TIME’s Richard Schickel as [one of the best movies ever,](http://entertainment.time.com/2005/02/12/all-time-100-movies/slide/taxi-driver-1976-2/) the critic didn’t exactly feel warmly toward it when it was released on Feb. 8, 1976—exactly 40 years ago. “The taxi driver‘s shift from lonely neurotic to killer is yawningly predictable—no more informative than a Sunday supplement piece on the mind of the assassin,” Schickel [wrote](http://time.com/vault/issue/1976-02-16/page/86/), noting that the film’s realism sometimes overshadowed its narrative potential. For example, the diary kept by protagonist Travis Bickle was a ripped-from-the-headlines take on the real 1970s would-be-assassin Arthur Bremer, a connection [acknowledged](https://books.google.com/books?id=%5FjU2441N8vcC&pg=PA109&lpg=PA109&dq=arthur+bremer+and+scorsese&source=bl&ots=mgnsY8JVVl&sig=TIuEkyPHeu2ycS-%5F7nYPmZOiFMo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjFmfDdkdfKAhVBHT4KHVmUCE4Q6AEIPTAI#v=onepage&q=arthur%20bremer%20and%20scorsese&f=false) by Scorsese himself. Bremer was the man who shot George Wallace in May of 1972, during Wallace’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. The Southern segregationist candidate was left partially paralyzed by the attempted assassination, an event both familiar and shocking to a nation that had recently seen more than its share of politically-motivated killings. By that point, there was a stereotypical profile for the kind of person who would attempt such a crime, and Bremer fit the bill—in a way that will be very familiar to viewers of _Taxi Driver_. Here’s what TIME [said](http://time.com/vault/issue/1972-05-29/page/24/), shortly after the shooting: --- > “” --- As for the diary, it [resurfaced](http://time.com/vault/issue/1972-08-14/page/24/) that August when it was read out loud during Bremer’s trial. It revealed that Bremer was not so much motivated by particular politics as by the desire to kill someone, as he had first tried to kill President Nixon and had also thought about pursuing George McGovern. Bremer even said that he “hoped to sell \[the diary\] to Time Inc. for $100,000.” Instead, he was found guilty and sentenced to more than six decades in prison. His diary was eventually [published](https://books.google.com/books/about/An%5Fassassin%5Fs%5Fdiary.html?id=poZ4AAAAMAAJ), however, and in 2007 Bremer [was released](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/08/AR2007110801804.html?tid=a%5Finl) from prison. **_Read TIME’s original review of_** **Taxi Driver,** **_here in the TIME Vault:_** [Potholes](http://time.com/vault/issue/1976-02-16/page/86/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4202693/taxi-driver-arthur-bremer-history/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4202693/taxi-driver-arthur-bremer-history/"},"headline":"The Real Crime That Inspired Taxi Driver","datePublished":"2016-02-08T15:00:25.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T14:38:54.680Z","description":"Travis Bickle's diary was a ripped-from-the-headlines take on a real would-be-assassin","url":"https://time.com/4202693/taxi-driver-arthur-bremer-history/","keywords":["movies","Crime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf15193faa9ca37c2/69887b9ce20a87bbeea8f4f9/taxi-driver.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf15193faa9ca37c2/69887b9ce20a87bbeea8f4f9/taxi-driver.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Robert De Niro In 'Taxi Driver'","caption":"Robert De Niro In 'Taxi Driver'","creditText":"Archive Photos—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4202693/taxi-driver-arthur-bremer-history/","name":"The Real Crime That Inspired Taxi Driver"}}]}] ```