2. Robert De Niro - Taxi Driver
Columbia PicturesLiving in a big city can often have the ironic effect of creating feelings of isolation - anyone who has lived somewhere like London or New York can attest to the strange dynamic whereby, despite being surrounded by millions of people, a lack of connection permeates the atmosphere. When crime and corruption become increasingly hard to ignore, it's easy to see how moral indignation can lead to acts of vigilantism. Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese's seminal movie about Travis Bickle's reaction to the decay and degradation of New York City and the country at large, takes the concept of a man overwhelmed by violent psychosis to the extreme. As political as it is personal, few films captured the post-Vietnam War despair which swept across America at the time with quite the same degree of justified cynicism. It is Robert De Niro who deserves full credit for making Taxi Driver such an incredibly powerful experience - demonstrating his awesome versatility as he shifts from listless insomniac through to idealist and ultimately delusional saviour, he crafts Bickle as a complex, multi-layered character. It's one of the greatest performances of all time in a film which is a genuine masterpiece.