What is the iRankMovies score for City Lights?

Name: City Lights
Director: Charlie Chaplin
Genre: comedy, drama, romance
Released: 1931
Duration: 1 h 27 min
Rating: 8.5

City Lights has an iRankMovies score of 90.1/100, based on a weighted combination of IMDb (×3.0), Rotten Tomatoes (×2.0), Metacritic (×1.5), and TMDb (×1.0).

City Lights (1931)

True Blind Love

Release:1931

Runtime:1h 27m

Country:United States

Director:Charlie Chaplin

Language:English

Genre

ComedyDramaRomance

See the best comedy movies →

Keywords

Blindness And Impaired VisionEye OperationOperationLove Of One S LifeSuicide AttemptFlower ShopFlower GirlTramp

iRank90

City Lights rating: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic

IMDb8.5/10· 215K votes

Rotten Tomatoes95%

Metacritic99%

TMDb8.251/10· 2K votes

With 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, backed by 8.5/10 on IMDb and 99/100 on Metacritic, critical reception of this film has been very positive.

About City Lights

A tramp falls in love with a beautiful blind flower girl. His on-and-off friendship with a wealthy man allows him to be the girl's benefactor and suitor.

Cast of City Lights

Charlie Chaplin
as A Tramp
Virginia Cherrill
as A Blind Girl
F
Florence Lee
as Her Grandmother
Harry Myers
as An Eccentric Millionaire
Al Ernest Garcia
as His Butler
Hank Mann
as A Prizefighter
Albert Austin
as Street Sweeper / Burglar (uncredited)
Eddie Baker
as Boxing Fight Referee (uncredited)
Henry Bergman
as Mayor / Blind Girl's Downstairs Neighbor (uncredited)
Buster Brodie
as Bald Party Guest (uncredited)
Jeanne Carpenter
as Diner in Restaurant (uncredited)
Tom Dempsey
as Boxer (uncredited)

City Lights facts

Budget: $1.5M
Box office: $4.3M

Our take on City Lights

Chaplin's 1931 silent romance follows the Tramp as he falls for a blind flower girl and schemes to fund the operation that could restore her sight. It balances dazzling physical comedy with one of cinema's most quietly devastating final scenes — proof that the silent form could break your heart. If its mix of humour and aching sentiment stayed with you, seek out classic comedies and tender romances where laughter and tears are inseparable.

Ranked by the iRankMovies editorial teamUpdated August 2026Methodology Data sources

Audience opinions

What the audience liked

•Emotional climax delivers devastating sentimentality through pure visual storytelling mastery
•Romantic sentiment balances Chaplin's comedic talents creating perfectly rounded entertainment
•Silent cinema technique demonstrates expressive power of physical acting and composition

What the audience disliked

•Slow deliberate pacing reflects silent era conventions potentially alienating modern viewers
•Sentimental tone veers toward schmaltz in final sequences testing viewer tolerance levels