TaxiMovies like Taxi
- Key Features:
- Social commentary, Iranian society, Taxi driver, Politics, Filmmaking, Realism, Everyday life, Cultural identity, Documentary style, Censorship
- Tone:
- serious, gritty, restrained
- Target Audience:
- World cinema enthusiasts, Social issue documentary viewers, Iranian culture interest, Cerebral film lovers
- Emotional Arc:
- Observation → Reflection → Disquiet
Taxi

A yellow cab is driving through the vibrant and colourful streets of Tehran. Very diverse passengers enter the taxi, each candidly expressing their views while being interviewed by the driver who is no one else but the director Jafar Panahi himself. His camera placed on the dashboard of his mobile film studio captures the spirit of Iranian society through this comedic and dramatic drive…
Taxi
The lives of three strong-willed women and a young musician cross paths in Tehran’s schizophrenic society where sex, adultery, corruption, prostitution and drugs coexist with strict religious law. In this bustling modern metropolis, avoiding prohibition has become an everyday sport and breaking taboos can be a means of personal emancipation.

Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who has been barred from leaving the country, arrives at a village on the Iran-Turkey border to supervise a film based on a real-life couple seeking passports to Europe being shot in Turkey, but both his stay and the production run into trouble.

A visual social examination in the form of ten conversations between a driving woman and her various pick-ups and hitchhikers.

Pietro Marchetti, a mature Roman taxi driver, has countless and interesting meetings while he is on duty with his car "Zara 87".

A taxi driver and a businessman create havoc in each other's lives after a chance meeting.

Harris and Penny, a cab driver and his fare, engage in flirtatious banter during their brief ride on a desolate road…until Penny abruptly vanishes from the back seat, leaving Harris mystified.

A seemingly simple taxi ride across Paris evolves into a profound meditation on the realities of the driver, whose personal life is in shambles, and his fare, an elderly woman whose warmth belies her shocking past.

A taxi driver is caught between a dysfunctional relationship between a woman and her father as he drives them to Kolkata.

May, 1980. Man-seob is a taxi driver in Seoul who lives from hand to mouth, raising his young daughter alone. One day, he hears that there is a foreigner who will pay big money for a drive down to Gwangju city. Not knowing that he’s a German journalist with a hidden agenda, Man-seob takes the job.

Suffering from insomnia, disturbed loner Travis Bickle takes a job as a New York City cabbie, haunting the streets nightly, growing increasingly detached from reality as he dreams of cleaning up the filthy city.

Gianni is a taxi driver dissatisfied with his life. One day by chance he gets the opportunity to take possession of the villa and life of a billionaire on holiday.

A man planning to commit suicide hires a taxi driver to take him to his jumping-off point.

Every day, Jay travels the length and breadth of Tokyo in his taxi, looking for his daughter Lily. In the 9 years since he has separated from his wife, he has never been able to get custody of his daughter. Having given up hope of ever seeing her again, he is about to move back to France when Lily hops in his cab. But she doesn't recognize him.

Filmmaker Jafar Panahi and actor Behnaz Jafari travel to a tiny village after receiving a plea for help from a girl whose family has forbidden her from studying acting. Amusing encounters abound, but they soon discover that the local hospitality is rivaled by the desire to protect old traditions.

A mouthy and feisty taxicab driver has hot tips for a green and inept cop set on solving a string of New York City bank robberies committed by a quartet of female Brazilian bank robbers.

A woman taking a cab ride from JFK airport engages in a conversation with the driver about the important relationships in their lives.

During the 2006 World Cup qualifying match between Iran and Bahrain, numerous young women are caught and rounded up for dressing as men so they could gain access to the game. Guarded by several soldiers in a holding pen, the women attempt to keep updated on the score.

Güven, a taxi driver is desperately in love with Meral, but he’s too shy to open up to her. One day he picks up a customer, gets accused of a crime he didn’t commit and his world is turned upside down.

Bull Webster is a taxi driver with some work problems on his hands: the Spider Corporation, a giant financial holding company, has decided to buy out his taxi co-operative in order to make it go bankrupt and purchase its land at a low cost.

On a building site in present-day Tehran, Lateef, a 17-year-old Turkish worker is irresistibly drawn to Rahmat, a young Afghan worker. The revelation of Rahmat's secret changes both their lives.

Jacek climbs into the taxi driven by Waldemar, tells him to drive to a remote location, then brutally strangles him, seemingly without motive.

An in-depth look at the torture practices of the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, focusing on an innocent taxi driver in Afghanistan who was tortured and killed in 2002.

A satirical take on the mundane absurdities of life in modern-day Iran, these nine vignettes illuminate the lighter side of enduring under authoritarian rule. Whether choosing a name for a newborn, graduating from grade school, getting a driver’s license, applying for a job, or seeking approval for a film script, if you live in Iran, you best come fluent in Orwellian discourse.

A quintet of cabbies in five cities and their remarkable fares on the same eventful night.

Sergio driving a taxi in a white Naples overflowing sadness and garbage. Pouring rain leads her clients through the city trying to process the death of his brother, who started ten years earlier for Tibet and never returned. A pop singer, a recycler of fragments of life, a radio announcer, an old uncle, alternate seats on its bearing, each in its own way, a trace of his brother loved. Stubborn not to go over and get lost in an endless race, Sergio is overwhelmed by memories and the music produced in pairs with Alfredo, which in Buddhism and in its foundations had found the strength to cope with the disease. Those notes that he believed buried and laid to always return overbearing and demanding a soundboard that resonate and express his being sound. Putting his hand on the piano, Sergio Alfredo feel again, giving the past with the present and realizing itself in the feeling.

Two stories of Italians abroad: in Dubai, a truck driver who smuggles Ferraris for a living teaches the tricks of the trade to his young disciple; in Russia, a clumsy dentist experiences the consequences of sex tourism.

An academic tags along among a crew of rowdy delivery-truck drivers, taking notes on their colorful and idiomatic use of language.

Raja, a taxi driver, falls in love with Aarti, a rich girl, and marries her against her parents' wishes. Later, her stepmother tries to create a rift betweenthe couple.

When the actor in a scene for his film Life And Nothing More… has to quit, a film director casts another man for the part. However, complications arise since the man and the woman who was cast for the scene know each other.

A police officer who's transfered in the police of Marseille gets assigned to take down a group of Italian robbers who drive the powerfull Ferrari's with the older niece of Daniel, a terrible driver who gets the legendary white taxi.

A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's newfound conservatism.

In a desperate attempt to reunite his broken family, a young taxi driver becomes entangled in the criminal underworld.

A middle-aged Tehranian man, Mr. Badii is intent on killing himself and seeks someone to bury him after his demise. Driving around the city, the seemingly well-to-do Badii meets with numerous people, including a Muslim student, asking them to take on the job, but initially he has little luck. Eventually, Badii finds a man who is up for the task because he needs the money, but his new associate soon tries to talk him out of committing suicide.

A cabdriver and a cop race to Paris to rescue a love interest and the Japanese minister of defense from kidnappers.

This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life event—the arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf—as the basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real people from the case play themselves.

In New York City, Thom is broke and jobless, illegally working as a taxi driver. Claire is a successful business-woman, but personally she's in shambles - then comes the phone call that her estranged father is in the hospital. Not knowing what to do, Claire hops in Thom's cab and orders him to just drive and so he does. They find themselves in Pennsylvania and Claire makes the rash decision to drive across the country to California. On the road, there are many detours as the obstacles and secrets force them to learn about themselves and each other.

Rouhi, a young bride-to-be, is hired as a maid for an affluent family in Tehran. Upon arriving, she is suddenly thrust into an explosive domestic conflict. The wife is convinced her husband is having an affair and enlists Rouhi as a spy, to follow her husband, and confirm her suspicions. What Rouhi discovers, however, threatens not only their marriage but her own future.

Vahid, an Azerbaijani auto mechanic, was once imprisoned by Iranian authorities. During his sentence, he was interrogated blindfolded. One day, a man named Eqbal enters his workshop. His prosthetic leg creaks, and Vahid thinks he recognizes one of his former torturers.

Pizza man Hussein is a daily witnesses to the unjust distribution of wealth in his native Iran. One day, he finds a purse filled with shockingly expensive receipts from an upscale jewelry store. He attempts to bring the purse back to the store, but because of his working-class attire, he's not allowed inside. Then, during a delivery, a rich man invites Hussein into his extravagant mansion – an event that spurs Hussein to make a desperate bid for wealth.

Iranian musicians Negar and Ashkan look for band members to play at a London concert ... and the visa that allows them to leave Tehran to do so.

Rahim is in prison because of a debt he was unable to repay. During a two-day leave, he tries to convince his creditor to withdraw his complaint against the payment of part of the sum. But things don't go as planned. Is he truly a hero?

Various women struggle to function in the oppressively sexist society of contemporary Iran.

Samad is nobody’s fool. The narcotics officer has seen his share of a drug dealer’s lies and games, and his patience has come to run thin. While searching for the infamous drug baron Nasser Khakzad, he and his colleague Hamid scour the streets of Tehran, turning an overcrowded prison on its head. With his rough and dubious approach, Samad finally manages to find the criminal’s whereabouts – but things do not quite go according to plan...

When young and attractive Lina Stroppiani, a thief like the rest of her family, tries to steal the taxi of Paolo, together with two accomplices, she can't possibly know that this will have far reaching consequences.

The Driver now carries an arrogant rock star who is visiting a major city. Played by Madonna, this title character wants to get away from her bodyguards in the Driver's BMW. He soon gets tired of her and decides to have a bit of fun.

An innocent cab driver is mistaken for a contract killer and imprisoned. Soon, he is sprung by a mob boss who needs a "killer" for a few more jobs.

Mexico City, or "Chilangolandia," is a chaotic metropolis where millions of stories take place every day. Some of them are part of this fun comedy full of familiar characters and others that defy stereotypes. Ramiro is a taxi driver who hopes his problems will end when his nephew "El Chulo" becomes a national soccer star. On the other hand, Carmen and Miguel are couple who unexpectedly receive a suitcase with a large sum of money, just what they need to get out of their financial situation. But when the true owners of the cash realize that it fell into the wrong hands, endless adventures and misunderstandings break out within this complex city.

The story of an encounter between a bourgeois man and a poor woman, because their teenage children fall in love.

Luc and his English friend Chris take a taxi to go home after partying hard all evening in Paris. At destination, they run away without paying the fare. They got the wrong driver for this... The taxi goes immediately into hunting mode, chasing them all night, wherever they go. But does he only want his money back?

After being implicated in a terrorist attack, Santi, a taxi driver, is taken hostage by one of the perpetrators.

An ambitious Indian driver uses his wit and cunning to escape from poverty and rise to the top. An epic journey based on the New York Times bestseller.

Three episodes. In the first episode Valerio is mistaken for a notorious criminal. Very beautiful journalists succeed to bring him to her house for an exclusive interview. She tries to seduce him. In the second episode Giuseppe, an unlucky and ugly man, gets a job as a maid. His mistress falls in love for him. In the third episode, Plinio is a taxi driver who loves his cab above all. But at one point he is involved with the kidnapping of a woman.

Forced out of their apartment due to dangerous works on a neighboring building, Emad and Rana move into a new flat in the center of Tehran. An incident linked to the previous tenant will dramatically change the young couple’s life.

Catherine refuses to believe that her business partner, the unlikeable François, has a best friend, so she challenges him to set up an introduction. Scrambling to find someone willing to pose as his best pal, François enlists the services of a charming taxi driver to play the part.

In several unrelated stories, the consequences of putting one's foot down – or failing to do so – are explored.

Claudia is married with Giovanni, a rather dull type. Meek Giacomo is happily divorced, until he meets her. Aldo is a colorful cabbie with whom she had an affair. Who'll win her heart?

A hit man named Kai flies into Bangkok, gets a gun, and orders a cab. He offers a professional female driver big money to be his all-night driver. But when she realizes Kai is committing brutal murders at each stop, it's too late to walk away. Meanwhile, an offbeat police detective races to decode the string of slayings before more blood is spilled.

Irreverent city engineer Behzad comes to a rural Kurdish village in Iran to keep vigil for a dying relative. In the meanwhile the film follows his efforts to fit in with the local community and how he changes his own attitudes as a result.

A tremendous congestion hits the Rome highway ring. The biggest traffic jam ever seen lasts more than 36 hours. At the beginning the people blocked in their cars react normally. But as more time passes, the more we witness personal dramas, hysteric reactions and other grotesque situations. All the episodes are linked as if in a single plot. Cars and their hosts are a microcosm of stories part of a larger universe: the congestion.

In Marseilles a skilled pizza delivery boy Daniel who drives a scooter finally has his dreams come true. He gets a taxi license. Caught by the police for a huge speed infraction, he will help Emilien, a loser inspector who can't drive, on the track of German bank robbers, so he doesn't lose his license and his dream job.

Several people try to take advantage of a little girl's innocence to hustle money her mom gave to her to buy a goldfish with.

Ganesh, a cab driver and a doting brother to his sister Tamizh, is hunting down three notorious criminals in Kolkata. Who is he actually and what's his motive?

A semi-autobiographical account of Makhmalbaf's experience as a teenager when, as a 17-year-old, he stabbed a policeman at a protest rally. Two decades later, he tracks down the policeman he injured in an attempt to make amends.

Rex is a loner, and when he's told he doesn't have long to live, he embarks on an epic drive through the Australian outback from Broken Hill to Darwin to die on his own terms; but his journey reveals to him that before you can end your life, you have to live it, and to live it, you've got to share it.

A married couple are faced with a difficult decision - to improve the life of their child by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer's disease.

Shirin is struggling to become an ideal Persian daughter, politically correct bisexual and hip young Brooklynite but fails miserably in her attempt at all identities.

Before being extradited to Africa to stand trial, a notorious Belgian criminal is entrusted to the Marseilles police department for less than 24 hours. But the wily crook convinces bumbling policeman Emilien he's a lowly Belgian embassy employee who got railroaded by the brilliant master criminal.

Follows a young cyclo driver on his poverty-driven descent into criminality in modern-day Ho Chi Minh City. The boy's struggles to scratch out a living for his two sisters and grandfather in the mean streets of the city lead to petty crime on behalf of a mysterious Madame from whom he rents his cyclo.

As her marriage dissolves, a Manhattan writer takes driving lessons from a Sikh instructor with marriage troubles of his own. In each other's company they find the courage to get back on the road and the strength to take the wheel.

A journalist descends into the dark underbelly of the Iranian holy city of Mashhad as she investigates the serial killings of sex workers by the so called "Spider Killer", who believes he is cleansing the streets of sinners.

Three extraordinary stories covering infidelity, adoption, and a drug dealer turned actor intertwine as characters meet in the streets of London.

After losing her job as a computer programmer, Lucía decides to become a cab driver.

Rebecca, an American who has been living in Jerusalem for a few months now, has just broken off her engagement. She gets into a cab driven by Hanna, an Israeli. But Hanna is on her way to Jordan, to the Free Zone, to pick up a large sum of money.

Yusuke Kafuku, a stage actor and director, still unable, after two years, to cope with the loss of his beloved wife, accepts to direct Uncle Vanya at a theater festival in Hiroshima. There he meets Misaki, an introverted young woman, appointed to drive his car. In between rides, secrets from the past and heartfelt confessions will be unveiled.

After losing a family member to a violent crime, a shattered rideshare driver picks up a passenger that forces him to confront his grief.

Cab driver Max picks up a man who offers him $600 to drive him around. But the promise of easy money sours when Max realizes his fare is an assassin.

Inspirational true story of Iranian dancer Afshin Ghaffarian, who risked his life for his dream to become a dancer despite a nationwide dancing ban.

A cart-taxi driver goes to the city to make a living, but out of sympathy with other poverty-stricken people, he works for free and goes hungry himself.

A chaotic family is on a road trip across a rugged landscape. In the back seat, Dad has a broken leg, Mom tries to laugh when she's not holding back tears, and the youngest keeps exploding into car karaoke. Only the older brother is quiet.

The story of a minibus driver and a fairytale princesss nestling under the wing of timeless friendship in an ordinary neighborhood.

An old villager deeply in love with his cow goes to the capital for a while. While he's there, the cow dies and now the villagers are afraid of his possible reaction to it when he returns.

Samson Cazalet, Taxi driver in his thirties, picks up a client at the airport. The same evening, the daughter of the woman disappears and the overwhelming evidence points to Samson. How can he prove his innocence when he is the ideal suspect?

A couple of friends work for a taxi driver to rob his passengers, but they feel like they're getting ripped off. They decide to plan their own robberies, but they are amateurs and things don't go too well. One of the youths, Cordoba, whose girlfriend Sandra is pregnant, just wants to get enough cash so they can leave Argentina and get to Uruguay to start a new life. He and his friends plan one last robbery, but things don't go as planned.

Ajatashatru Lavash Patel has lived all his life in a small Mumbai neighborhood tricking people with street magic and fakir stunts. He sets out on a journey to find his estranged father but instead gets dragged on a never-ending adventure.

A young Vienna-based taxi driver of Turkish origin witnesses an extremely brutal murder. The perpetrator, a serial killer, makes eye contact with her; a deadly game of cat-and-mouse ensues.

Set against the backdrop of Iran's strict and oppressive legal system, this anthology film tells the stories of four men who each face a moral crisis when having to deal with death penalties.

When an ostrich-rancher focuses on replacing his daughter's hearing aid, which breaks right before crucial exams, everything changes for a struggling rural family in Iran. Karim motorbikes into a world alien to him - incredibly hectic Tehran, where sudden opportunities for independence, thrill and challenge him. But his honor and honesty, plus traditional authority over his inventive clan, are tested, as he stumbles among vast cultural and economic gaps between his village nestled in the desert, and a throbbing international metropolis.

Lorna is a young Albanian woman in a marriage of convenience with Claudy, a heroin addict. Just as Lorna is about to be granted Belgian citizenship, Claudy finds the strength to detox; this presents a problem not only for Lorna, but for the criminal who brokered the deal.

Mahin lives alone in Tehran since her husband’s death and her daughter’s departure for Europe, until an afternoon tea with friends leads her to break her solitary routine and revitalize her love life.

Mory, a cowherd, and Anta, a university student, try to make money in order to go to Paris and leave their boring past behind.

Georgian bush pilot Valentin (Valiko) Mizandari a.k.a. Mimino works at small local airlines, flying helicopters between small villages. But he dreams of piloting large international airlines aircrafts, so he goes to Moscow for refresher courses. There in a hotel he meets truck driver Robik who is given a place in that hotel by mistake, and they have a lot of adventures in Moscow. Always amicable and open to people, Mimino does not feel at home in the big city. Nevertheless, he becomes a pilot of a supersonic jet liner, the Tupolev Tu-144, flying all over the world. But feeling homesick, he finally comes back to his native town of Telavi in Georgia, to his family and friends.

Salam, an inexperienced young Palestinian man, becomes a writer on a popular soap opera after a chance meeting with an Israeli soldier. His creative career is on the rise - until the soldier and the show's financial backers disagree about how the show should end, and Salam is caught in the middle.

Mohammad joyfully returns to his tiny village on summer vacation from the Institute for the Blind, unaware of his widowed father's intentions to disown him in order to win the hand—and dowry—of a local woman. With the wedding swiftly approaching, Mohammad's future hangs precariously in the balance as his father struggles against his destiny, unable to see the wonder of life and love that's so clear to his son.

Two desperate men turn in an uncomfortable business partners to find a secret gold looking for change their bad star.

In a working-class quarter of Dublin, 'Bimbo' Reeves gets laid off from his job and, with his redundancy payout, buys a van and sells fish and chips with his buddy, Larry. Due to Ireland's surprising success at the 1990 FIFA World Cup, their business starts off well, but the relationship between the two friends soon becomes strained as Bimbo behaves more like a typical boss.

A New York taxi driver stalks a beautiful actress attending the Cannes Film Festival, which coincides with a series of violent killings of the lady's friends.

A notorious thief allies with a street racer for a grand heist involving an elaborate game of deceit with authorities, who have their own dirty secrets.

The mysterious disappearance of a kindergarten teacher during a picnic in the north of Iran is followed by a series of misadventures for her fellow travelers.

After being coerced into working for a crime boss, a young getaway driver finds himself taking part in a heist doomed to fail.
