Sheldon Bart (Fred Ward) is a drifter, and a small-time con man. He meets his old friend, Brother Bud (Harry Dean Stanton), a big-time con man into faith healing and fencing stolen cars, at his revival tent outside a small town. While he's helping Brother Bud, he falls in love with Arlene (Cindy Williams), a local supermarket clerk who believes in UFOs and is deeply religious and deeply lonely. When Arlene has a vision of a coming UFO, everyone deals with it in their own way.

An unemployed worker answers a personal ad for a housekeeper to a crusading female lawyer, and then takes her to court to force her to accept him into her home, claiming sex discrimination.

Pete "Skag" Skagska is a 56-year-old union foreman of a Pittsburgh steel mill until a crippling stroke forces him to stay home and try to put his life back together and deal with family problems.

An advertising executive finds herself in a small-town jail after being terrorized on a drive from Los Angeles to New York by two hitchhikers who steal her car and leave her unconscious by the roadside. She becomes a fugitive after killing her jailer during a rape attempt and breaking out with one of the hitchhikers who could prove her innocence.

Story follows three generations of a family in the New York City Police Department.

Based on Gail Sheehy's book, this film chronicles how a reporter for a New York City magazine decided to investigate the city's prostitution industry to find out just who was making all the money. What she found out caused a firestorm of controversy--that many of the city's richest and most powerful families and corporations benefited directly and indirectly from the illegal sex business.

An "underground" cartoonist contends with life in the inner city, where various unsavory characters serve as inspiration for his artwork.