14 Most Memorable David Warner Roles Ranked

He was never a household name in Hollywood, but the chances are you've seen the late David Warner in action. Warner was a versatile character actor, one constantly in demand during a five-decade career filled with memorable movie roles. The imposing Brit was usually tasked with playing a heavy and often wasn't the first choice for a role, but it mattered little to him. "I don't have the ego problems of a major star," he once told the Argus Leader. "When people don't recognize my face or name, well, it's fine with me. After all, there are more important things than being an actor, but it's all I can do."

His honest outlook allowed him to disappear into his work, churning out one cunning, conniving, or comical character after another. Warner had over 200 credits to his name by the time he died at the age of 80 in 2022. To honor this gifted character actor's legacy, we're ranking his most memorable performances ever.

David Lynch's "Twin Peaks" was a sensation in its first short-but-sweet season, but after it answered the question of who murdered Laura Palmer midway through Season 2, other mysteries were needed to fill the void and keep the show going. The dirty dealings of Josie Packard (Joan Chen) — who may have been responsible for her husband's death at the request of his business partner (and her lover) Thomas Eckhardt — became one such enigma.

Thomas Eckhardt appeared in only three episodes, but David Warner made the most of his screen time, bringing an air of mystery and arrogance to the character. Warner knew nothing of the series or its twisty storylines when he signed on, once telling AV Club: "I just went in blind and did my best." With lines like "One does not kill for art or money, they are commodities easily lost and just as easily gained," Eckhardt shows his deviousness, but his dark past catches up with him and leads to dire consequences. Even though he isn't in the series finale, his presence is felt in a most explosive way.

Three years after his Emmy nominated turn in "Holocaust," David Warner delved into another dark chapter in Jewish history with the ABC miniseries "Masada." Masada was a mountaintop citadel where a small band of Jews engaged in a standoff with the Roman army. Warner plays Senator Pomponius Falco, a thorn in the side of his fellow Roman General Cornelius Flavius Silva. Silva is portrayed by Peter O'Toole, and while he was the marquee name on the project, Warner more than holds his own. The Hartford Courant was among the outlets that praised Warner's performance, calling it "a first-rate acting job."

Coming so soon after "Holocaust," the role took an emotional toll on Warner. He told the Argus Leader that be became "really depressed" playing a notorious Nazi, adding: "I became very depressed, too, when I was making 'Masada.'" In the end, the critically acclaimed miniseries earned 13 Emmy nominations, including Warner's second. This time, he was successful: He walked away with the statuette for outstanding supporting actor in a limited series or special.

The 1960s were a swinging time. People were letting their hair down and loosening up, just like David Warner as the title character in the 1966 film "Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment." Morgan is a Marxist writer who embarks on an adventure after his prim and proper wife Leonie (Vanessa Redgrave in one of her first movie roles) asks for a divorce. The New York Times was full of praise for the Brit, calling him "terrifying and droll, crafty and pathetic. He is a beatnik with a broken heart."

The film is very much of a certain place and time. It had a big impact on the American youth of the mid-60s, and it certainly caused many people to take notice of Warner's acting abilities for the first time. "I've marveled at this following the picture has in your country," Warner told New Jersey's The Herald-News. "That is a phenomena that has not been duplicated anywhere else."

Warner became so associated with the role of Morgan that he got "typed as a crazy loony" thereafter, he said during a 1984 interview with the Bennington Banner. In 2001, he rued the fact that he hadn't been able to do more comedy. "It's what I have always wanted to do," he told The Daily Telegraph. "I started off with it — 'Morgan' was a tragicomedy — but then I got slotted into the heavy stuff."

While it's perhaps not quite as famous as 1973's "The Exorcist," 1976's "The Omen" is just as scary and still holds up to this day. It follows American diplomat Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck), who, without the knowledge of his wife (Lee Remick), replaces their deceased newborn son with the child of a mother who just passed away giving birth. Of course, the new child — who they name Damian — turns out to be the antichrist.

David Warner enters the film as photographer Keith Jennings, whose photos reveal hidden evils and push Thorn to dig deeper into the mysterious origins of Damien's birth. When they get a little too close to the truth, Warner gets decapitated by a flying sheet of glass in one of cinema's all-time greatest exits. "That was one of the easier scenes to do," Warner told The Herald-News. "It required no effort on my part at all." The actor went on to say that he loved working opposite Gregory Peck on the horror classic. "It was an experience I cherish," he said.

Terry Gilliam has created some of the most wonderful, whimsical, and bewildering films of the last 50 years, but in his own opinion, "Time Bandits" was the "most important" of the lot. "It opened the doors to 'Brazil' and everything that followed," he told The Guardian. "What I love the most is it's full of interesting ideas, exciting enough for adults, and intelligent enough for children." It's the story of a kid and six dwarves who use a special map to travel through time and find treasure. There is a dastardly villain hovering over them who wants the map for himself: the suitably named Evil Genius.

Gilliam initially wanted to cast Jonathan Pryce in the role, but a production class made that impossible. In the end, he settled on David Warner, who he admired for his work in "Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment." The imaginative filmmaker told Famous Monsters magazine that Evil Genius "becomes ridiculous because of David's intensity, and his focus is just wonderful because he's not playing it for laughs. And yet, you laugh, because we all can see he's mad and he's surrounded himself with such pathetic helpers." Warner found it "delightful" to work with an "extraordinary filmmaker" like Gilliam, despite the film being a chore to shoot. "It was tough, because of the costume," he told AV Club. "It was a very, very heavy costume."

The "Star Trek" franchise has blazed through many frontiers and crossed over into numerous generations. David Warner was along for the voyage, playing three different characters. In the William Shatner-directed 1989 film "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier," he made little impact as disillusioned diplomat St. John Talbot. "Unfortunately, a lot of my stuff was cut out of that particular one, but that's the way it is," he told AV Club. "So I was totally surprised when they wanted me to be in 'Star Trek VI' as another species! Having played a human in 'V,' suddenly they wanted me to be a Klingon."

The Klingon he's referring to is the ill-fated Chancellor Gorkon, who Warner played in 1991's "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country." He revealed his love for the character during an interview with StarTrek.com. "What the attraction of this was that he was the bridge between Klingons," the actor explained. "He wasn't the evil master Klingon; he was actually trying to make peace. Just his name, Gorkon, and the beard; he was a cross between Gorbachev and Lincoln."

He later reunited with his old friend Patrick Stewart on "The Next Generation," interrogating Captain Picard in the two beloved "Chain of Command" episodes. Warner was a last-minute fill-in for the part of Cardassian Gul Madred and barely had time to learn his lines. "I got the makeup on, read the lines, and hoped for the best," he told StarTrek.com. "And it turned out to be a classic episode. Isn't that nice?"

David Warner steals the show in the 1979 cult classic "Time After Time," turning in a career-best performance as the notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper. Warner enters the picture as surgeon Dr. John Leslie Stevenson. Before he can be caught for his murderous alter ego's crimes, he borrows H.G. Wells' (Malcolm McDowell) time machine and gets groovy in '70s San Francisco. H.G. Wells then makes his own time leap to try and catch the Ripper. He expects the future to be a utopia, but it's the Ripper who feels more at home in the violent modern age. "The world has caught up with me and surpassed me," he proclaims. "90 years ago I was a freak. Today, I'm an amateur."

The chemistry between old friends McDowell and Warner is magic, but this pairing almost never happened. Warner Bros. execs were pushing to cast Mick Jagger as the Ripper, but director Nicholas Meyer pushed back against the idea. Warner got the nod instead, and he was thrilled. "It's a good part," the actor told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at the time. "I'm a heavy, and yet the film is such a fantasy that I'm not really heavy." As far as McDowell is concerned, Warner was meant to play this part. "[He] was absolutely brilliant and nobody could've been better than him," McDowell said (via It Came From...).