Robert Townsend (born February 6, 1957) is an American actor, comedian, film director, and writer.

On the big screen, he has directed Eddie Murphy in Eddie Murphy: Raw (1987); Halle Berry and Martin Landau in B*A*P*S (1997); James Earl Jones and Bill Cosby in The Meteor Man (1993), which Townsend also wrote and in which he starred. Other credits include The Five Heartbeats (1991); Love Songs (1999), a TV movie starring Louis Gossett, Jr., and Andre Braugher; the Disney family film Up, Up, and Away (2000); and the LGBT TV movie Holiday Heart, starring Ving Rhames.