Christopher Thomas Howell (born December 7, 1966), known as C. Thomas Howell, is an American actor and director. He starred in the films The Outsiders, as Ponyboy Curtis, and The Hitcher, as Jim Halsey. He also starred in Grandview U.S.A., Red Dawn as Robert, Secret Admirer as Michael , and Soul Man, and appeared in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox.

In 1983 he and Outsiders co-star, Patrick Swayze, reunited for Grandview, U.S.A., also with Jamie Lee Curtis, and Red Dawn, with Charlie Sheen and Lea Thompson. Howell also had a pivotal role in Tank, with James Garner and Jenilee Harrison. In 1985 he again starred in the lead role in Secret Admirer, opposite Lori Loughlin and Kelly Preston. Howell was one of two final actors in the running to play Marty McFly in Back to the Future the other being Eric Stoltz, who was eventually selected. Michael J. Fox would later go on to replace Stoltz after filming had begun.

In 1986 he played a hitchhiker's target in the film The Hitcher, another of his successful movies. The sequel was released in 2003. Following that, he starred as a white student who pretends to be black to receive a scholarship, in the poorly received Soul Man, which currently holds an aggregated score of 14% at Rotten Tomatoes. Howell has since stated that he does not regret playing the main character in blackface and that Soul Man was "an important part of [Howell's] life" and "an important film" for racial relations in America. In 1988 Howell played Arturo Toscanini in the story of the world-renowned conductor in Franco Zeffirelli's Il giovane Toscanini with Irma Capece Minutolo and Elizabeth Taylor, which was one of his very first straight-to-video releases. Howell and Kelly Preston reunited as lovers in A Tiger's Tale.