diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/82528summary.yml b/changelogs/fragments/82528summary.yml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..ab99e13b6bd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/82528summary.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+bugfixes:
+- Warning now includes filename and line number of variable 
+  when specifying a list of dictionaries for vars (https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/82528).
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/lib/ansible/playbook/base.py b/lib/ansible/playbook/base.py
index 96c3b9815dc..df18ecb61ad 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/playbook/base.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/playbook/base.py
@@ -589,10 +589,11 @@ class FieldAttributeBase:
                 _validate_variable_keys(ds)
                 return combine_vars(self.vars, ds)
             elif isinstance(ds, list):
+                line_file = getattr(ds, 'ansible_pos', ("unknown", 0))
                 display.deprecated(
                     (
                         'Specifying a list of dictionaries for vars is deprecated in favor of '
-                        'specifying a dictionary.'
+                        'specifying a dictionary. Error occurred in the file: %s, line: %d' % (line_file[0], line_file[1])
                     ),
                     version='2.18'
                 )