Character is a 1997 Dutch-Belgian film, based on the best-selling novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk and directed by Mike van Diem. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 70th Academy Awards. The film stars Fedja van Huêt, Jan Decleir, and Betty Schuurman.

Ferdinand Bordewijk was a Dutch author. His style, which is terse and symbolic, is considered to belong to New Objectivity and magic realism. He was awarded the P. C. Hooft Award in 1953 and the Constantijn Huygens Prize in 1957. He wrote novels and short stories; of his novels, his 1938 Character is canonical in the Netherlands, and was the basis for a 1997 film of the same name.