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Once Upon a Time in the West, in true Sergio Leone style, ends with an extended shootout scene between Harmonica (Charles Bronson) and Frank (Henry Fonda).

Spaghetti Western is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western film that emerged in the mid-1960s, so named because most were produced by Italian studios. Originally they had in common the Italian language, low budgets, and a recognizable highly fluid, violent, and minimalist cinematography that eschewed (some said "demythologized") many of the conventions of earlier Westerns — partly intentionally, partly as a result of the work being done in a different cultural background and with limited funds. The term was originally used disparagingly, but by the 1980s many of these films came to be held in high regard, particularly because it was hard to ignore the influence they had in redefining the entire idea of a western up to that point.

The best-known and perhaps archetypal Spaghetti Westerns were the Man With No Name trilogy (or Dollars Trilogy) directed by Sergio Leone, starring the American then-TV actor Clint Eastwood and with musical scores composed by Ennio Morricone (all of whom are now synonymous with the genre): A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Atypically for the genre, the latter had a relatively high budget in excess of one million USD. His following film after the so-called "trilogy" was Once Upon a Time in the West, which is often lumped in with the previous three for its extremely similar style and accompanying score by Morricone, only differing itself from the others by the absence of Clint Eastwood in the starring role.

Many of the films were shot in the Spanish Tabernas Desert of Almería, which greatly resembles the landscape of the American Southwest. (A few were shot on Sardinia.) Because of the desert setting and the readily available southern Spanish extras, a usual theme in Spaghetti Westerns is the Mexican Revolution, Mexican bandits, and the border region shared by Mexico and the US.

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The name led to various other non-U.S. westerns being associated with food and drink.

Sometimes the names chorizo/paella western are used for similar films financed by Spanish capital, although Leone's earlier films were actually shot in Almería. Publicity for the Japanese comedy film Tampopo coined the phrase "Noodle Western" to describe the parody made about a noodle restaurant. Robert Rodriguez's westerns, El Mariachi, Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico, have been called "Burrito Westerns." Sometimes Hrafn Gunnlaugsson's Viking movies are called "Cod Westerns." The German Westerns of the 1960s, which were successful in Europe before the Italian Westerns, often made after novels by Karl May and mostly filmed in Yugoslavia are often called "Sauerkraut Westerns". The GDR DEFA Studios made Sauerkraut Westerns in Yugoslavia like their West German counterparts and also had a Native American as hero (usually played by Gojko Mitic).

The Red Dwarf episode Gunmen of the Apocalypse has been described as the world's only "Roast Beef Western", although the British director Shane Meadows' film Once Upon a Time in the Midlands has been described as a "tinned-spaghetti Western." John Woo's Western movies were described by Roger Ebert as "Dim Sum Western." The Thai film Tears of the Black Tiger by director Wisit Sasanatieng has been dubbed both a "stir-fry horse opera" and "a Pad Thai Western" by critics. The "Red Western" or "Ostern" is the Soviet and eastern bloc's take on the genre. (Time magazine dubbed the animated TV series Samurai Jack, which combined elements of — among others — anime and the Sergio Leone films, a "Soba Western.") Monty Python's Flying Circus provided a "cheese Western" parody as a film critic discussed Sam Peckinpah's Rogue Cheddar film.

An entire sub-genre of Westerns produced by the Indian film industry, and especially Bollywood based in Mumbai, is whimsically named "curry Western." Notable as being one of the most successful box-office hits of all time in India is the "curry Western" Sholay.

Main article: List of spaghetti western films

• Revisionist Western
• Zapata Westerns

• Deadlands, a role playing game sometimes described as "The Spaghetti Western... With Meat!"
• Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive, a Spaghetti Western-themed computer game specially based on the Dollars trilogy
• Desperados 2: Cooper's Revenge, the sequel to Desperados
• Outlaws, a Spaghetti Western-themed computer game
• Red Dead Revolver, another Italian Western themed video game
• Bang!, a non-collectible card game produced in Italy and translated to several languages, has a Spaghetti Western theme to it, even keeping the Italian text along with the translated text in the cards

• Weisser, Thomas, Spaghetti Westerns: the Good, the Bad and the Violent — 558 Eurowesterns and Their Personnel, 1961–1977. (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1992)

• A Fistful of Westerns
• The Spaghetti Western Database
• 10,000 Ways to Die Book about Spaghetti Westerns made between 1963 and 1973, released under a Creative Commons license by its author Alex Cox.