Richard Attenborough – Gandhi

• Taylor Hackford – An Officer and a Gentleman
• Wolfgang Petersen – Das Boot
• Sydney Pollack – Tootsie
• Steven Spielberg – E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

David Anspaugh – Hill Street Blues for "Personal Foul"

• Paul Bogart – American Playhouse for "Weekend"
• Marc Daniels – Fame for "And the Winner Is"

Alan Alda – M*A*S*H for "Where There's a Will, There's a War"

• James Burrows – Cheers for "Sam at Eleven"
• Noam Pitlik – Taxi for "Jim's Inheritance"

Marvin J. Chomsky – Inside the Third Reich

• Jack Hofsiss – The Elephant Man
• Delbert Mann – The Member of the Wedding

Don Mischer – Shirley MacLaine... Illusions

• Jim Drake – Second City Television for "The Days Of The Week/Street Beef"
• Clark Jones – Night of 100 Stars

Perry Miller Adato – American Playhouse for "Carl Sandburg: Echoes and Silences"

• Don Mischer – Kennedy Center Honors
• Marty Pasetta – 54th Academy Awards

Joe Pytka – Bud Light's "Baseball" and "Basketball", and Henry Weinhard's' "Future/Gallup"

• William Dear – Budweiser's "Here's To You", KIMN's "Patron" and "Waitresses", and ABC Sports' "Promo"
• R. Hagmann – Coca-Cola's "Soccer", and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' "Video Games"
• Richard Loew – The Travelers Companies' "Auto", IBM's "Bakery", American Express' "City Terrace", Fotomat's "Grandmothers", and 7 Up's "Of Course You Do"
• Norman Toback – Activision's "River Raid", Straw Hat Pizza's "Tim Conway/Horse", and GTE's "Trip"