10 Best Unsung Actors From Each Movie Genre

10. Jack Warden - Legal Thrillers

The courtroom thriller became a staple not long after Edgar Allen Poe's Murders in Rue Morgue, arguably the first detective story. Charles Dickens would write barely disguised stories based on cases ripped from the headlines, among others. But the court setting didn't really start in earnest, with any sort of cinematic accuracy, with Otto Preminger's 1959 Anatomy of a Murder, from a novel by Michigan Supreme Court Judge John D. Voelker.

Murder was the second film that took gravely the court motions that are now boilerplate for a Law and Order episode. In 1957, Sydney Lumet's adaptation of Reginald Rose's 12 Angry Men showed the court from the jury's POV, and Jack Warden had a seat at the table.

As Juror 7, he was the wise-cracking salesman with Yankees tickets burning a hole in his pocket. In the film, he was more of an audience identifier than Henry Fonda's argumentative Juror 8. Juror 7 may come off as callous but Warden plays it so likeable. He may be easily manipulated, but there's no malice in him.

As Warden aged, he took roles more on the side of justice, appearing as an elderly mentor to Rebecca De Mornay in Guilty as Sin, one of Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman's grouchiest editors in All The President's Men and Warren Beatty's trainer in Heaven Can Wait.

Even when he was the more unhinged judge in ...And Justice For All, packing heat and holding court, he was saner than the rest.