What exactly is a "Western", beyond the setting, cowboys and native americans?

Django Unchained is definitely a western, though The Hateful Eight is more of an Agatha Christie whodunit, set in the west.

Usually a story that takes place in the 19th century, involving various storylines from indian wars, settlers, romance, thievery, outlaws, the railroad, gold mining, silver mining, land rights, water rights, anything pertaining to the history of the west, and all things associated with it.

Pretty much any film depicting frontier life. It’s usually not cowboys, it’s gunslingers, whiskey and whores. Tarantino films are westerns in my book. Even Kill bill 1&2 both took a lot from Sergio Leone

Uncivilized lawlessness, gunplay, hastily built wooden structures, people having to live by their wits.

There’s got to be some shooting.

A modern morality play

Good question, and a lot of so called westerns aren’t really Westerns. A lot of movies set in the Civil War are called Westerns, despite the fact that the setting is often east of the Mississippi. As in “Shenandoah”, for instance, or John Fords “The Horse Soldiers”. Some films have a Western aura, but aren’t set in the American West, or even in America at all. “The Man From Snowy River” is an example, set in Australia. And I don’t recall the title, but I saw one when I was a kid, about a British Police Officer in a small community in South Africa, who has to stand alone against a band of pistol packing, horse riding Boer frontiersmen. Not even set in the American West, but it had that aura about it. Plot was very similar to “High Noon”. I guess you could call it a genre, regardless of the setting. Kind of like what the French refer to as “Cinema Coloniale”, a genre usually glorifying colonialism and small bands of soldiers sanding off hordes of natives. The troops could be US Cavalry, French Legionnaires, or Scottish Highlanders, the setting could be the high Plains, Morocco, or India.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/83/DistantTrumpetPoster.jpg/220px-DistantTrumpetPoster.jpg http://www.mysteryfile.com/Bi0214/Flame-Poster.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/34/Beaugeste.jpg One more example of the same tired genre. “Westerns” are much the same.

Zoom into someone’s eyes.

Genuine frontier bullshit with a side order of spaghetti

When I hear the term “western”, I think more of the open landscape as the determinant of dealing with lawlessness both in people and in the culture.

Good directors and writers have disassociated “Westerns” from the time and the location. A great exa,pile of that is “No Country for Old Men”. And, “The Last Picture Show” was a Western set in modern Texas.

19th century, must include horses, at least one person wearing a gunbelt, and has to be west of the Mississippi River, though for me, I think they should take place west of the Missouri River. There can be soldiers, but they have to be fighting natives (including from Mexico) not each other.

Set in the western territories of the USA during a certain date range.

But that would be a definition that aims at making the name make sense. Certainly the main conventional thoughts involve guns, horses, and wide-rimmed hats. But other frontier settings also get used, such as the Canadian wilderness, and Central or possible Southern American locations.