Characters are of crucial importance for the creation and experience of films and other media. Their cultural significance can hardly be overestimated, but they also raise manifold questions.

This book provides a comprehensive theory that guides the analysis and interpretation of characters in four dimensions: as represented beings with physical, psychological, and social characteristics; as artefacts with aesthetic structures; as meaningful symbols; and as symptoms of socio-cultural origins and effects. Integrating insights from film, media, and literary studies as well as philosophy, psychology and sociology, the book offers a variety of means to better understand characters and emotional responses to them.

It also contains many practical tools and exemplary studies of numerous characters from different kinds of films. 'Film Characters: Theory, Analysis, Interpretation' will therefore be of great value to scholars and students of film and media studies and related disciplines, as well as artistic practitioners.