It was released on 11 September 2000 by Parlophone and Mushroom Records as the second single for her seventh studio album, Light Years (2000), and was distributed in various formats.

An accompanying music video was shot by Douglas Avery, with its plot being inspired by the Martin Scorsese 1995 film Casino.

[1][2] "On a Night Like This" was originally written for Swedish recording artist Pandora by Steve Torch, Brian Rawling, Graham Stack, and Mark Taylor, with production being handled by the latter two.

[9][10] A cardboard sleeve was issued only in France, including "On a Night Like This" and "Ocean Blue", while the Australian and New Zealand formats were re-released in Taiwan by EMI Music.

According to Minogue, she believed it intertwined with the message of "sunshine, beach, fun, glamour", a concept she wanted to experiment with on the parent album.

[22] Minogue recorded the track at Dreamhouse Studios in London, United Kingdom during early 2000, and it was mixed by Mark Taylor and Graham Stack.

"[25] A reviewer from British tabloid NME compared the "disco" sound to the 2000 track "Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)" by Spiller, and to the work of English recording artist Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

Writing for Stylus Magazine, Mark Edwards said that the recording was one of the singer's songs from Ultimate Kylie that "cemented her comeback".

[28] AllMusic's Chris True favored "On a Night Like This" as one of the better cuts on the parent album, and selected the track as some of Minogue's best work.

[20] While likening the recording to the track "Groovejet" by Spiller and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, a reviewer from British tabloid NME felt the comparison "works because it doesn't revolve awkwardly round a random disco beat".

[32] Guillermo Alonso, from the Spanish edition of Vanity Fair, wrote: "paying homage to the different sounds of the decades she had already lived through.

[33] On a more mixed note, NME's Stevie Chick believed that Minogue lacked genuine "passion" throughout the song and labelled it "unremarkable".

[52][53] The plot was loosely based on Martin Scorsese's 1995 crime drama movie Casino, with Minogue herself portraying a character using aspects of Sharon Stone's bored trophy wife.

[55] The music video opens with a group of mob members plotting a scheme whilst Hauer is seen drinking an unspecified alcohol.

Hauer, who is by himself at home, hears Minogue walking into the apartment, but she pushes over a large green vase and smashes it; disinterested, he looks towards in distance.

[26][55] On 22 September 2000, Minogue performed the recording live for the first time on Top of the Pops, wearing the same pink and beige dress from the music video.

Minogue performed "On a Night Like This" during her Aphrodite: Les Folies Tour in 2011, which contained elements of DJ Sammy's single "Heaven".

[75] It was released three months after Minogue announced a new album that focused on re-worked versions of her previous singles, commenting, "I've been at Abbey Road for about two weeks in total.

[79] Writing for The Guardian, Caroline Sullivan noted the track to "[transform] the teenage-crush fervour of the original into a cool, big-band seduction".

[80] To promote the track, Minogue's label Parlophone distributed a CD single in the United Kingdom on 17 December 2012, which featured the re-worked recording and its instrumental version.

Scott Kara from the New Zealand Herald highlighted the track as one of the two standouts on the album, and praised its composition; he called it a "sweeping and grand serenade".

[25] Similarly, Digital Spy's Robert Copsey selected the track as one of the better cuts and commended how the orchestral quality allowed to emphasise the lyrical content more than the original.

[83] Jeff Katz from the American music website Idolator was very positive, stating "Many of the cuts—including 'On A Night Like This,' 'Finer Feelings' and 'Confide in Me' — sound ready for placement in a Bond film.

[19] To promote the single, Minogue performed the orchestral version as part of the BBC Proms in the Park London 2012 in December.