The owner of the oil company Petrox Corporation, Fred Wilson (Charles Grodin), invests all his possessions searching oil in an unexplored island. The vessel leaves Surubaya, in Indonesia, with the stowaway Jack Prescott (Jeff Bridges), who wants to protect an ape called Kong. While traveling, they find the castaway Dwan (Jessica Lange) in the middle of nowhere in a rescue boat in the ocean and bring her on board. The group finds that the island is inhabited and the local natives worship a huge gorilla called Kong. They abduct Dwan to offer her in a sacrifice to Kong. The crew hikes into the jungle trying to rescue Dwan. King Kong falls in love with Dwan and protects her against a huge serpent. When Fred finds that the oil in the island is not ready for exploitation, he decides to capture Kong and bring him to New York for exhibition. In the middle of a show, King Kong escapes, bringing panic to the locals.

Carlo Rambaldi was to design a life-sized mechanical gorilla for filming. While the massive and expensive model was being constructed, makeup artist Rick Baker built a much cheaper gorilla costume to wear in some scenes. Sources differ as to what happened to Rambaldi's model.

Jack Prescott:
There is a girl out there who might be running for her life from some gigantic turned-on ape.

Errors in geography: The World Trade Center towers were not visible from the bar as shown.