The film is about a beautiful and ambitious young woman who joins a traveling troupe of third-rate vaudevillians and inadvertently causes jealousy and emotional crises.

A collaboration with Alberto Lattuada in production, direction, and writing, Variety Lights launched Fellini's directorial career.

When the local promoter notices that the crowd responds approvingly to Liliana, he interrupts the performance and directs the group to feature the newcomer.

The movie ends with Liliana, sporting an expensive fur coat, boarding a first-class train carriage en route to Milan.

In the final scene, the two trains leave the station as Checco, reunited with Melina, begins to flirt with a young woman who sits across the aisle from him.