| Round Midnight | Bertrand Tavernier | France, United States |
| Momo | Johannes Schaaf | Germany, Italy |
| The Sunday Daddy | Naum Birman | Soviet Union |
| The Hit | Stephen Frears | United Kingdom |
| Ran | Akira Kurosawa | France, Japan |
| Trial on the Road | Aleksei Yuryevich German | Soviet Union |
| The Insurance Man | Richard Eyre | United Kingdom |
| Plenty | Fred Schepisi | United Kingdom, United States, Australia |
| At Close Range | James Foley | United States |
| Dawn | Miklós Jancsó | France, Israel |
| One Magic Christmas | Phillip Borsos | Canada, United States |
| Mask | Peter Bogdanovich | United States |
| Retouche | Dieter Funk | Germany |
| The Legend of Suram Fortress | Dodo Abashidze, Sergei Parajanov | Soviet Union |
| The Protector | Jackie Chan, James Glickenhaus | United States |
| Uramisten | Péter Gárdos | Hungary |
| Maria's Lovers | Andrei Konchalovsky | United States |
| Teachers | Arthur Hiller | United States |
| Colonel Redl | István Szabó | Germany, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Austria |
| Farewell, Illusions | Petter Vennerød, Svend Wam | Norway |
| Heaven's Gate | Michael Cimino | United States |
| Purple Rain | Albert Magnoli | United States |
| The Hotel New Hampshire | Tony Richardson | United Kingdom, Canada, United States, Austria |
| Åke and His World | Allan Edwall | Sweden |
| The Natural | Barry Levinson | United States |
| Nineteen Eighty-Four | Michael Radford | United Kingdom |
| What a Sun | Jane Kavčič | Socialist Republic of Slovenia |
| Country | Richard Pearce | United States |
| A Year of the Quiet Sun | Krzysztof Zanussi | Germany, United States, Poland, Italy, West Germany |
| And Life, and Tears, and Love | Nikolai Gubenko | Soviet Union |
| Paris, Texas | Wim Wenders | France, Germany |
| A Woman in Transit | Léa Pool | Canada |
| Beat Street | Stan Lathan | United States |
| Breakin' | Joel Silberg | United States |
| The Bounty | Roger Donaldson | United Kingdom, United States |
| Bright-Eyes | Dong Kena | People's Republic of China |
| Moscow on the Hudson | Paul Mazursky | United States |
| Tan Sitong | Chen Jialin | People's Republic of China |
| Sista leken | Jon Lindström | Finland, Sweden |
| Scarface | Brian De Palma | United States |
| The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter | Lau Kar-leung | Hong Kong |
| Yentl | Barbra Streisand | United States |
| Open Future | Petter Vennerød, Svend Wam | Norway |
| Female Cats | Shingo Yamashiro | Japan |
| Mona and the Time of Burning Love | Mikko Niskanen | Finland |
| Sahara | Andrew V. McLaglen | United Kingdom, United States |
| The Dead Zone | David Cronenberg | United States |
| Eddie and the Cruisers | Martin Davidson | United States |