Rich has been a regular contributor to the Village Voice, as well as the San Francisco Bay Guardian and the British Film Institute's Sight and Sound. She's also contributed to Elle, Mirabella, The Advocate and OUT, and edits film/video reviews for GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. Unlike many other critics, Rich is known as a champion of films and film movements who lobbies on behalf of filmmakers and cutting-edge work, rather than simply passing judgement.

Rich started her career in film exhibition, as founder of the Woods Hole Film society in 1972 and then as associate director of the Film Center at the Art Institute of Chicago. After a stint as film critic for the Chicago Reader, she moved to New York City to become the Director of the film program for the New York State Council on the Arts for its decade-long golden age prior to disastrous budget cuts.

Since 1992, Rich has lived in San Francisco and taught documentary film and queer studies during Spring semesters at the University of California, Berkeley. Her other projects include curating the tribute to Argentine cinema for the Sundance Film Festival and the Documentary Matters series for the opening season of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; she is also a consultant to numerous U.S. philanthropic foundations. In 1995-96, she was a Rockefeller Scholar in the Humanities at NYU's Center for Media, Culture and History.