Free Willy 3: The Rescue

Jesse, now sixteen, has taken a summer job aboard a marine research vessel, working alongside his old friend Randolph and a sharp-tongued scientist named Drew. Their work involves investigating a decline in the local whale population, and Jesse hopes it will also bring him back into contact with Willy, the orca he once helped return to the wild. The researchers suspect that illegal whaling is behind the falling numbers.

A whaling boat is operating in the same waters, run by a captain named John Wesley who has brought his young son Max along. Max is uneasy about his father's trade but says nothing. When the boy and Jesse cross paths, the two of them become unlikely allies in an effort to protect Willy and the other orcas. The third entry in the Free Willy series was directed by Sam Pillsbury, following his 1991 film Zandalee and coming before Fifteen and Pregnant in 1998. John Mattson wrote the screenplay, Jennie Lew Tugend produced, and Jason James Richter and August Schellenberg reprise their roles, with Annie Corley, Vincent Berry and Patrick Kilpatrick joining the cast.

Made for a reported 35 million dollars, the film returned roughly 3 million worldwide. On IMDb it holds 4.7 from over ten thousand votes, while on TMDB it sits at 6.1 from fewer than four hundred, and a critics' rating of 5.2 from sixteen reviews places it in similar territory to the audience scores.