Wandering the city streets, the Little Tramp happens upon a blind flower girl who mistakes him for a rich man. The Tramp later saves a drunken millionaire who is attempting to drown himself in the river. The millionaire becomes his best friend. That is, until he sobers up and no longer recognizes the Tramp…

In City Lights, friendship and social ranking are not always as they seem. We enter a world of a disenchanted bourgeoisie, where a tramp is king and a blind girl, queen.