Amoral men who traffic in human beings pick the wrong girl to exploit when they discover her best friend is an fighting machine bent on revenge in this thriller. Billy Ray Lancing (Steven Seagal) is a former American intelligence agent who has retired to seek peace of mind by living alone with nature. Lancing, however, has developed a close relationship through the mail with Irena (Ida Nowakowska), an orphaned teenager living in Poland; they correspond frequently, and Lancing uses his letters to help teach her how to read code. When Irena's letters stop arriving, and Lancing receives a terse message saying she won't be contacting him again, he becomes suspicious and travels to Poland. There, Lancing makes the shocking discovery that the charitable organization for orphaned children Lancing had been helping to support is actually a front for a worldwide network of sexual slavery. Working with Polish law enforcement, Lancing sets out to find Irena and her fellow orphans before it's too late, using his years of experience to ferret out the men responsible and his talent for codes to stay in touch with Irena.

This socially conscious family farm drama from director Mark Rydell was his follow up to the Oscar-winning On Golden Pond (1981). Mel Gibson and Sissy Spacek star as Tom and Mae Garvey, struggling Tennessee farmers constantly one step away from foreclosing. Their farm sits next to a river that both nourishes their land and constantly threatens to overflow its banks and destroy their crops. The Garveys sell some of their equipment for obscenely low prices at a foreclosure auction, at which some of their neighbors are forced to give up everything they own. The stoic Tom takes a job as a scab at a mill where the union workers are striking. Meanwhile, Mae has a platonic flirtation with local bank manager Joe (Scott Glenn), who saves her life when she's trapped under a heavy piece of farm equipment. Tom's homecoming is cut short by a flood, but the raging waters allow him to become a hero to his family again. The River was the third in a trio of dramas depicting the plight of the American family farmer released that same year.