The film is based on a story by Fellini, who expanded it into a screenplay along with his co-writers Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli and Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Oblivious to Giorgio's criminal intentions, Cabiria stands close to the edge of the water, before being pushed in to the river, and having her purse and money stolen.

One night, she is outside an upscale nightclub and witnesses a fight between famous movie star Alberto Lazzari and his girlfriend.

As she heads home later that night, she sees a man giving food to the poor people living in caves near her house.

In the film's last sequence, Cabiria walks the long road back to town when she is met by a group of young people riding scooters, playing music, and dancing.

[7] Nights of Cabiria was filmed in many areas around Italy, including Acilia, Castel Gandolfo, Cinecittà, Santuario della Madonna del Divino Amore, Porta Maggiore, the Baths of Caracalla and the Tiber River.

The consensus states: "Giulietta Masina is remarkable as a chronically unfortunate wretch with an indomitable spirit in Federico Fellini's unrelentingly bleak – yet ultimately uplifting – odyssey through heartbreak.

"[11] Upon its original 1957 release, on the other hand, French director François Truffaut thought Cabiria was Fellini's best film to date.

She called the film "a cinematic masterpiece", and added that the final shot of Cabiria is worth more than "all the fire-breathing blockbusters Hollywood has to offer.

Film critic Roger Ebert reviewed mainly the plot and Fellini's background: "Fellini's roots as a filmmaker are in the postwar Italian Neorealist movement (he worked for Rossellini on Rome, Open City in 1945), and his early films have a grittiness that is gradually replaced by the dazzling phantasms of the later ones.

Nights of Cabiria is transitional; it points toward the visual freedom of La Dolce Vita while still remaining attentive to the real world of postwar Rome.

In 1998, the film was re-released, newly restored and now including a crucial 7-minute sequence (with the man giving food to the poor people living in caves) that censors had cut after the premiere.

[16] The Village Voice ranked Nights of Cabiria at number 112 in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list in 1999, based on a poll of critics.