The men's hammer throw was an event at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California.

With the absence of the Soviet team due to the Eastern Bloc boycott, which had swept the medals the last two Games and had both Yuriy Sedykh (the two-time defending champion, two-time European champion and world record holder) and Sergey Litvinov (1980 silver medalist and 1983 world champion over runner-up Sedykh) as two of the top throwers in the world, the field was open.

[2] Karl-Hans Riehm of West Germany, a contender in the event, finalist in both 1972 and 1976 and undefeated in 1979, before being kept out of the 1980 Games due to the American-led boycott, finally earned a medal with his silver-winning performance.

The competition used the two-round format introduced in 1936, with the qualifying round completely separate from the divided final.

In qualifying, each athlete received three attempts; those recording a mark of at least 72.00 metres advanced to the final.