[5] The film revolves around a team employed at The Back Bay Mainline, an alternative newspaper in Boston,[6] as they face the threat of a takeover by a major corporation.

The Real Paper, Boston Phoenix Los Angeles Free Press, SoHo Weekly News, and the Village Voice are thanked in the end credits.

[18] The success of the film led to an unsold 1980 TV sitcom pilot, with Sandy Helberg, Adam Arkin, Gino Conforti, and Kristoffer Tabori, also titled Between the Lines.

[21] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote, "Joan Micklin Silver's second feature, Between the Lines, an episodic romantic comedy about the staff members of the Back Bay Mainline, a prospering "underground" weekly in Boston, is the most likable and encouraging American movie to be release so far this year.

With an all-star cast and some great comedic bits — enjoy watching Goldblum engage in a battle with a local performance artist at the Back Bay Mainline headquarters — Between the Lines is a late addition to the already impressive canon of essential 1970s cinema.

[26]Steve Prokopy of Third Coast Review wrote, "There’s not much by way of story in Between the Lines and a great deal of the dialogue feels spontaneous and improvised, which only adds to the film’s authenticity.

[11] Richard Winters of Scopophilia opined "when the film deals with the relationships there seems to be too much of a feminist bias as the men are always shown to be the ones at fault due to their 'insensitive and selfish natures' while the women come off the ones who are 'reasonable and unfairly neglected'.

"[28] In The Guardian, Ryan Gilbey described the film as "a fond but not uncritical portrait of the disaffected staff at a formerly radical, fictional alt-weekly Boston newspaper, from the street-corner hawker all the way up to accounts, editorial and the much-despised incoming corporate boss...Silver’s sympathy for radicalism, and her deft cutting between different pockets of action unfolding in the same space, lent the film an Altmanesque feel.

"[29] Margaret Moser of The Austin Chronicle said, "There's no way for us to modestly skirt this film's effect: This story of an underground paper in Boston facing corporate buy-out was the inspiration for starting the newspaper you hold in your hand.