To me, this movie is perfection.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Jim Jarmusch creates 5 vignettes from around the world of cab drivers and their passengers. In Los Angeles, tomboy cabbie Corky (Winona Ryder) picks up Hollywood executive Victoria Snelling (Gena Rowlands) at the airport. In the end, Victoria offers Corky a movie role but she rejects it for her plans to be a mechanic. Winona is cute as a cabbie but very, very, very fake.In New York, YoYo (Giancarlo Esposito) can't get a cab to go to Brooklyn until Helmut Grokenberger (Armin Mueller-Stahl) picks him up. It's Helmut's first fare and he can't really drive. YoYo takes over driving and picks up YoYo's loud sister-in-law Angela (Rosie Perez). This is lotsa yelly fun. Armin is great, Giancarlo is terrific and Rosie is loud.In Paris, a cabbie from Ivory Coast (Isaach De Bankolé) is angry with passengers and throws them out. He picks up a blind woman (Béatrice Dalle) and they have a tough discussion. This is my favorite of the vignettes. I don't know who Isaach was at the time but he's amazing. In Rome, a cabbie (Roberto Benigni) is driving like a mad man and he picks up a priest (Paolo Bonacelli). He makes a lot of crazy confessions and then the priest dies. This one depends greatly on how much Benigni one can take. It's a bit too much for me.In Helsinki, a cabbie picks up three drunk guys. One of them was just fired from his job and then he passes out. This one is a fine sad story although it may work not as the last one. I would end stronger with the Paris one.

This is a wonderful movie...i truly enjoyed...after the movie was finished i just felt better...lets say happier.and the Benigni role was fantastic...maybe the best one.Very funny. I personally didn't like truly the opening of a movie, can't say i enjoyed watching Winona Ryder, but it was a good part of a movie.The stories after the opening one are fantastic. The one in Rome, with Roberto Benigni, is just super funny. After i saw this movie my opinion about Benigni has changed completely. From just OK actor went sky high. Ater this one i had to watch another movie from same director and again Benigni has role in it. It is called Down By Law.

Jim Jarmusch is an acquired taste, at best. This 1991 movie, which was produced, directed, and written by Jarmusch, is slow, self-indulgent, and horribly scripted. Five scenes, in five dark cities, play out at night. These are taxi scenes, but take it from me, folks: I have driven a taxi in two cities, only one of them dark, and every night that I drove I returned home with at least one story to relate that was better than these. It is painful to watch Gina Rowlands or Winona Ryder, for example, deliver lines that make them look like beginning actors. Only Roberto Benigni, who probably wrote his own comic bit, sustains any interest. Enjoy another film.

Jim Jarmusch's experiment is a succession of 5 "short" films, all taking place in a taxi, at night - hence the title - in various cities. If you've experienced anything like Paris, Je T'Aime or it's New York based counterpoint, then you have an idea what to expect... except you don't, not really. All the flaws are reversed.Jarmusch has a knack for absurd situations, but 2 important factors constrain him in this case: Length: 5 minutes per film might be a bit short sometimes to get anything more than a gimmick or gotcha, but 20 minutes, given the confined space, proves tiresome in most of the vignettes. There is simply too little for many of his characters to do or express given the rules Jarmusch has set himself. Cliché: not a bad thing in itself when it can be subverted a bit (and to a degree, one of the segments does this with a lot of charm), but here things become a bit too obvious. Of course, the LA segment is a bout filmmaking/acting, the Paris story about sex, and the Scandinavian one had to be about death. Mixing things up could have been more refreshing. The twist to the French one saves it a bit.The consistency of vision helps, something compilations of shorts by various filmmakers lack. But the real saving grace is the performances - with the exception of a typically overbearing Roberto Benigni - and the jewel of the collection, so to speak, that is the Paris segment with the ever- dependable Isaach De Bankolé. In fact, a whole film wit his character would have probably a better final product, though that would deprive us of the sight of Armin Mueller-Stahl and Gena Rowlands, two touching artists we see all too rarely.Worth seeing at least once.