The Ballon d'Or award is annnual football award for the best player from the previous year. Up until 1995 it was awarded only to football players from Europe and was generally known as the European Footballer of the Year award.

Below are the nominees in the final order after voting for the 1985 award. The winner was Michel Platini. Juventus' Platini became the second player to win the Ballon d'Or on three occasions (after Johan Cruyff) though he was the first to win it three consecutive times (1983, 1984 and 1985). See the list of all Ballon d'Or winners.

Final order for the men's 1985 Ballon d'Or

Order Player Club Nationality Points
1 Michel Platini Juventus France 127
2 Preben Elkjær Hellas Verona Denmark 71
3 Bernd Schuster Barcelona West Germany 46
4 Michael Laudrup Juventus Denmark 14
5 Karl-Heinz Rummenigge Internazionale West Germany 13
6 Zbigniew Boniek Roma Poland 12
7 Oleh Protasov Dnepr Dnepropetrovsk Soviet Union 10
8 Hans-Peter Briegel Hellas Verona West Germany 9
9 Bryan Robson Manchester United England 8
  Rinat Dasayev Spartak Moscow Soviet Union 8
11 Rudi Völler Werder Bremen West Germany 7
12 Luis Fernández Paris Saint-Germain France 6
  Søren Lerby Bayern Munich Denmark 6
14 Rafael Gordillo Real Madrid Spain 5
  Ian Rush Liverpool Wales 5
16 Emilio Butragueño Real Madrid Spain 4
  Fernando Gomes Porto Portugal 4
18 Harald Schumacher 1. FC Köln West Germany 3
  John Sivebæk Vejle Denmark 3
  Neville Southall Everton Wales 3
21 Lajos Détári Budapest Honvéd Hungary 2
  Alain Giresse Bordeaux France 2
  Vahid Halilhodžić Nantes Yugoslavia 2
  Tibor Nyilasi Austria Wien Hungary 2
  Peter Reid Everton England 2
  Peter Shilton Southampton England 2
  Graeme Souness Sampdoria Scotland 2
  Pat Jennings Tottenham Hotspur Northern Ireland 2
29 Steve Archibald Barcelona Scotland 1
  Jan Ceulemans Club Brugge Belgium 1
  Anatoliy Demyanenko Dinamo Kyiv Soviet Union 1
  Georgi Dimitrov CSKA Sofia Bulgaria 1
  Gheorghe Hagi Sportul Studențesc Romania 1
  Mark Hateley Milan England 1
  Herbert Prohaska Austria Wien Austria 1
  Gary Stevens Everton England 1
  Andreas Thom Dynamo Berlin East Germany 1
  Ladislav Vízek Dukla Prague Czechoslovakia 1