"In City Lights, just the last scene ... I'm not acting .... Almost apologetic, standing outside myself and looking ... It's a beautiful scene, beautiful, and because it isn't over-acted" Charlie Chaplin.

The ending has been mimicked in numerous films including Manhattan, Magnolia and La dolce vita.

James Agee wrote in Life magazine in 1949 that it was the "greatest single piece of acting ever committed to celluloid".