1. Robert De Niro - Taxi Driver
De Niro's incendiary turn as a sociopathic taxi driver with a moral license is his definitive and most haunting. De Niro embodies Travis Bickle, who is plagued by the decadence of New York City and takes a downward spiral into political assassinations and gruesome shootouts. It was De Niro's second collaboration with legendary director, Martin Scorsese and they would go on to have the finest actor-director relationship in cinema history. Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader craft a character of great contradiction and complexity - Bickle is a man appalled at the sleaze that penetrates the streets of the city but he is a man that commits murder. Bickle's misguided morals, haunted soul and genuine belief that his actions are righteous are just what makes him eat into your head, provoking thoughts and questioning morality. The fact that Travis Bickle has become such an icon of cinema and his face devours thousands of students' walls is disturbing, but understandable. Bickle is a loner, his mind was twisted and broken in Vietnam and the horrors of war will never leave him. He can't sleep - growing more agonised as his insomnia mounts. He's truly alienated in a world he can no longer comprehend and insanity is taking over him. Robert De Niro's performance as Travis Bickle is the greatest performance ever given by an actor, his eyes don't lie and we believe the horror of Travis' life. Of all the tortured souls Scorsese, Schrader and De Niro created in their storied careers, Travis Bickle remains the most frightening and compelling.