[2] The title comes from the Red Krayola song "Born in Flames", which appears in the film and was written by Mayo Thompson, a member of the conceptual artists' group Art & Language.

The local community is stimulated into action after a world-traveling political activist, Adelaide Norris, is arrested upon arriving at a New York City airport, and suspiciously dies while in police custody.

The film ends with the women taking one more action, to bomb the antenna on top of the World Trade Center to hinder further destructive messages coming from the government and mainstream media.

Born in Flames marks the first screen appearance of Eric Bogosian;[4] he plays a technician at a TV station who is forced at gunpoint to run a videotape on the network feed.

"[9] Frances Dickinson of Time Out London wrote that Borden "[handles] her story with audacity and make[s] even the driest argument crackle with humour, while the more poignant moments burn with a fierce white heat.

[19] With an introduction from Craig Willse and Dean Spade, the dossier includes a number of essays that address race, queerness, intersectionality, radicalism, violence, and feminism in the film.

[21] Richard Brody of The New Yorker wrote "the free, ardent, spontaneous creativity of Born in Flames emerges as an indispensable mode of radical change—one that many contemporary filmmakers with political intentions have yet to assimilate.

"[22] He also wrote "Borden's exhilarating collage-like story stages news reports, documentary sequences, and surveillance footage alongside tough action scenes and musical numbers; her violent vision is both ideologically complex and chilling.

"[22] Melissa Anderson of The Village Voice wrote "this unruly, unclassifiable film — perhaps the sole entry in the hybrid genre of radical-lesbian-feminist sci-fi vérité — premiered two years into the Reagan regime, but its fury proves as bracing today as it was back when this country began its inexorable shift to the right.