City Lights begins with an uproarious skewering of pomp and formality, ends with one of the most famous last shots in movie history and, form start to finish, so completely touches the heart and tickles the funny bone that in 1998 it was named one of the American Film Institute's Top-100 American Films.

Talkies were well entrenched when Charles Chaplin swam against the filmmaking tide with this forever classic that's silent except for music and sound effects. The story, involving the Tramp's attempts to get money for an operation that will restore sight to a blind flower girl, provides a star with an ideal framework for sentiment and laughs. The tramp is variously a street sweeper, a boxer, a rich 0poseur, and a rescuer of a suicidal millionaire. His message is unspoken, but universally understood: love is blind.