Alec Baldwin (Jack Ryan), Sean Connery (Marko Ramius), Scott Glenn (Bart Mancuso), Sam Neill (Vasili Borodin), James Earl Jones (Admiral Greer), Joss Ackland (Botschafter Andrei Lysenko), Stellan Skarsgård (Captain Tupolev), Richard Jordan (Jeffrey Pelt), Peter Firth (Ivan Putin), Tim Curry (Dr. Petrov), Courtney B. Vance (Petty Officer 2. Class Ronald Jones (Sonar)), Anthony Peck (Lieutenant Commander Thompson - USS Dallas), Fred Dalton Thompson (Admiral Painter), Ronald Guttman (Leutnant Melekhin - Roter Oktober), Ned Vaughn (Seaman Beaumont - USS Dallas), Daniel Davis (Captain Davenport), Larry Ferguson (Bootschef), Timothy Carhart (Bill Steiner), Jeffrey Jones (Skip Tyler)