Aleksei Valerevich Serebryakov was born on July 3, 1964 in Moscow. His father was an aircraft Engineer and his mother worked as a Doctor at the Gorky Film Studio. In his childhood, he attended a music school (class of accordion).

Aleksei Serebryakov has been in a relationship with his current wife Maria since the 1980s. They were married in the 1990s and have three children; one child from Maria's previous marriage and two whom they have adopted together.

After graduating from GITIS, Serebryakov starred in several films, including "Silent Outpost" (1986) and "Accused of the Wedding" (1986), and some others. He gained wide popularity due to his main character as a Criminal fighter in Vladimir Feoktistov's movie "Fan" (1989).

In the 1990's, Aleksei kept playing in films. In particular, he took part in the film Afghan Breakdown (1990) that was directed by Vladimir Bortko. He also starred in the 1990 film Accidental Waltz, for which he won the best actor prize at the Locarno Film Festival. His another important work was a role in Sergey Livnov's 1994 drama "Hammer and Sickle".

Aleksei Serebryakov played Sergei Mamontov in the partly biographical film The PyraMMMid (2011), a fictional story inspired by financier Sergei Mavrodi (the founder of MMM pyramid scheme).

In March 2012, Serebryakov emigrated to Canada with his family, citing corruption and political unrest in Russia as barriers to raising his children.

In 2014, Serebryakov performed in one of his most important roles to date — the lead role of Kolya in Andrei Zvyagintsev's internationally acclaimed drama Leviathan.

In 2015-2016, he continued acting in TV series, including "Fartsa" and The Method.

In 2017, he played role of Dr. Andrey Richter in Doctor Richter, a Russian remake of the American medical drama series, House. In that same year, he also played in the historical fantasy feature film Furious.

Serebryakov appeared in the 2018 BBC series McMafia, where he played Dmitri Godman, mafia boss father of protagonist Alex. In the same year, he became embroiled in controversy over his statement in an interview that the most Common traits of Russian people are "[brutal] force, rudeness and arrogance". He also said in the interview that he does not like two things about Vladimir Putin — lies and thieving.