The men's K-4 1000 metres event was a fours kayaking event conducted as part of the Canoeing at the 1996 Summer Olympics program.
| align=center bgcolor=gold | Gold | align=center bgcolor=silver | Silver | align=center bgcolor=cc9966 | Bronze |
Thomas Reineck Olaf Winter Detlef Hofmann Mark Zabel | András Rajna Gábor Horváth Ferenc Csipes Attila Adrovicz | Oleg Gorobiy Sergey Verlin Georgiy Tsybulnikov Anatoli Tishchenko |
16 crews entered in two heats. The top two finishers in each heat advanced to the final while the remaining teams competed in the repechages.
| Heat 1 | |||||
| width=30 | 1. | width=80 | 3:07.908 | QF | |
| 2. | 3:11.128 | QF | |||
| 3. | 3:11.752 | QS | |||
| 4. | 3:14.224 | QS | |||
| 5. | 3:15.208 | QS | |||
| 6. | 3:17.144 | QS | |||
| 7. | 3:19.868 | QS | |||
| 8. | 3:23.352 | QS | |||
| Heat 2 | |||||
| 1. | 3:07.517 | QF | |||
| 2. | 3:10.625 | QF | |||
| 3. | 3:13.165 | QS | |||
| 4. | 3:13.809 | QS | |||
| 5. | 3:15.493 | QS | |||
| 6. | 3:16.297 | QS | |||
| 7. | 3:17.021 | QS | |||
| 8. | 3:27.133 | QS |
The top two finishers in the each semifinal and the fastest third-place finisher advanced to the final.
| Semifinal 1 | |||||
| width=30 | 1. | width=80 | 3:00.799 | QF | |
| 2. | 3:01.307 | QF | |||
| 3. | 3:01.427 | QF | |||
| 4. | 3:05.643 | ||||
| 5. | 3:06.611 | ||||
| 6. | 3:06.855 | ||||
| Semifinal 2 | |||||
| width=30 | 1. | width=80 | 3:01.806 | QF | |
| 2. | 3:02.202 | QF | |||
| 3. | 3:03.218 | ||||
| 4. | 3:03.870 | ||||
| 5. | 3:06.850 | ||||
| 6. | 3:11.146 |
The final was held on August 3.
| width=30 bgcolor=gold | width=60 | 2:51.528 | ||
| bgcolor=silver | 2:53.184 | |||
| 2:53.996 | ||||
| 4. | 2:54.772 | |||
| 5. | 2:55.884 | |||
| 6. | 2:55.908 | |||
| 7. | 2:56.664 | |||
| 8. | 2:56.696 | |||
| 9. | 2:57.560 |
Germany stayed close to Hungary for the first 750 meters of the race before pulling away to win decisively.