10 Movie Characters You Didn't Realise Secretly Died In Movies

2. Travis Bickle - Taxi Driver

Perhaps the most popular "dying dream" theory in cinema history stems from Martin Scorsese's classic thriller Taxi Driver, in which lonesome cabbie Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) slowly descends into murderous insanity.

The film climaxes with Bickle shooting up a brothel and rescuing child prostitute Iris (Jodie Foster), and when the police arrive, they find a bloody Travis staring at them, who mimics firing a gun at himself before passing out from blood loss.

Ultimately, Travis is held up as a hero for rescuing Iris, who returns home to go to school, before Travis has a promising encounter with the object of his affections, Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), who rejected him earlier in the movie.

Many have interpreted this almost parodically "happy" ending as nothing more than Travis' optimistic death dream, and that he really bleeds out following the brothel shootout.

The theory picked up major traction after Roger Ebert supposed it in his 2004 re-review of the film, and though both Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader have rejected the idea, we're going to invoke some Death of the Author here and suggest that the truth doesn't really belong to them anymore.