The film stars William Hurt as Arkady Renko, Lee Marvin as Jack Osborne, Joanna Pacuła as Irina Asanova, Rikki Fulton as Major Pribluda, Brian Dennehy as William Kirwill, Ian McDiarmid as Professor Andreev, Michael Elphick as Pasha and Ian Bannen as Prosecutor Iamskoy.

The plot follows Renko, a Moscow police investigator, on the trail of a gruesome triple murder that leads him into a web of government corruption.

Upon release, Gorky Park was a box office disappointment, barely earning back its $15 million budget, but received positive reviews from critics.

Moscow militsiya officer Arkady Renko is called to a clearing near the Gorky Park ice rink, where three bodies – two men and one woman – have been discovered.

At the dacha of Chief Prosecutor Iamskoy, Renko makes the acquaintance of American sable importer Jack Osborne, who is accompanied by Asanova.

Renko and his partner Pasha interrogate Golodkin, a black market dealer with KGB ties, who confesses that Osborne commissioned him to build a religious chest, but the three victims built another one.

Osborne produces six dead sables, but Renko, realizing neither side will let the other live, goads the KGB agents into attacking.

In the ensuing shootout Pribluda and the KGB agents are killed; Renko manages to grab a gun and hide in the woods with Asanova.

[3] Filming was delayed until February 1983 because of scheduling conflicts with the director John Schlesinger, who would eventually be replaced with Michael Apted, and various cast changes.

The Soviet Communist Party condemned the film as anti-Communist and anti-Russian and denied the crew access to shoot in Moscow.

Ralf G. Bode's cinematography and James Horner's score go a long way toward setting a hauntingly bleak mood, and the supporting players, particularly Brian Dennehy and Ian Bannen, are excellent".

[9] Roger Ebert found the depiction of Soviet society to be the most interesting aspect of the film, and he credited Apted's direction for never letting the procedural lag.