The men's hammer throw at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea had an entry list of 30 competitors from 16 nations, with two qualifying groups before the final (12) took place on Monday September 26, 1988.

The Soviet team completed the medal sweep, with Yuriy Sedykh taking silver and Jüri Tamm bronze.

Four of the 12 finalists from the 1984 Games returned: gold medalist Juha Tiainen and sixth-place finisher Harri Huhtala of Finland, and Christoph Sahner of West Germany and Matthew Mileham of Great Britain, both of whom had failed to make a legal mark in the final.

Also returning were Soviets Yuriy Sedykh, Sergey Litvinov, and Jüri Tamm, who had swept the medals (in that order) in 1980 but had been kept out of the 1984 Games due to the Soviet-led boycott.

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