Would someone care to explain all the hype?

There are a lot of classic films that I have a heretical disdain for, so I can sympathize with you, but Once Upon a Time in the West isn't one of them. It's not my favorite western, but I think it's pretty remarkable. I know one hears this a lot when they bring up not "getting" a certain picture, but I do think OUATITW needs a second viewing to absorb. Why? One of the masterful things about the movie is that, in practically every scene in the movie, the audience has no clue as to why the events taking place are taking place. Why are the three gunmen waiting at the train station...and why do they want to kill Harmonica? Why is the McBain family being massacred? Why does Harmonica want to kill Frank? Almost every scene is like this. A second viewing means the audience knows the answers to these questions and can follow the plot better.

OUATITW has an operatic sweep to it and it looks like every single shot took years to compose. It's a larger-than-life tale, about people from all walks of life "bringing civilization" to a barren land, with some revenge thrown in to the mix.

It's not my favorite Sergio Leone film (that would be Duck, You Sucker), but I do think OUATITW is a very worthy flick. I think the music's brilliant. You disagree, and that's okay. To each their own, I suppose. So, yeah, I'd recommend a second viewing, and, if you still don't like it after that, then that's that.

It's definitely for a much smaller audience than The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. It's not as "whimsical" I guess, for lack of a better word. It's way slower, way harder to follow and much grittier. It's not an adventure film like the Dollars movies, it's a very slow burning revenge drama. I think it's a masterpiece, but I can understand why it's not as popular.

Saying that it's "the only western you ever need to see" is plain wrong in my opinion. This is definitely not where you should start if you want to get into westerns, it will most likely put you off the genre instead of getting you interested.

"Ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?"

There are a couple of featurettes that come with the OUATITW Blu-ray, entitled "Something to Do With Death" and "The Wages of Sin", that go a ways to conveying what I love about this movie. You can find these featurettes on YT if you want to see them. Leone made reference to many classic westerns, including High Noon, Johnny Guitar, 3:10 to Yuma, Shane, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. He shot in Almeria and at Cinecitta, which was standard for Italian westerns of the time, but also shot in Monument Valley as tribute to John Ford and American westerns.

So Once Upon a Time in the West is a love letter to the western genre, but through its narrative, it's also a requiem. The film depicts the inevitable advance of the railroad as both a good thing and a bad thing. It brings civilization to the frontier, but it also brings corruption, and it signals the end of people like Cheyenne, Frank, and Harmonica. This ambiguity is mirrored in the brilliant casting of Henry Fonda against type.

It's also the beginning of Morricone having a greater influence on Leone's films. He composed leitmotifs for each of the main characters, and devised the idea of the symphony of sound effects during the train station sequence. For the first time, Leone went into production with a complete score, and so was able to shoot to it. The synergy between the music and the images is IMO greater than in any other film up to that time.

It is just one of the best films ever made along with once upon a time in America. This is not a pure Western. I think that it's style, the direction, the cinematography, the awesome acting by the leads, and the legendary score by the equally legendary Morricone are just rarely equaled by any Western or any films in the history of cinema.

I am in complete agreement. It's just not an interesting film. I guess different tastes for different folks but it's even slower than TGTB&TU, which is a bit too slow for my tastes. There really isn't much more development than Dude1 wanted to build a train station and Dude2 wanted it. His bride shows up and wants revenge.
One of the underrated strengths of TGTB&TU is the background of the civil war which makes the trials, tribulations and desires of 3 criminals pale in comparison.
Anyway, not much here for me. Bronson and Jason Robards are terrific. Fonda is good but rather miscast. Ah well.

Sig, you want a sig, here's a SIG-sauer!

It's not "the only western you ever need to see". To me, it's simply the LAST western you need to see. It's a masterpiece about an era and it sums it up amazingly.
It has one of the greatest soundtrack you can hear in a movie.
It contains one of the best female characters in western genre. Also Bronson and Fonda are the distilled quintessential embodiement of antihero and villain.

Of course, it's a matter of tastes. You are not supposed to like it per se. But I'd give it a second chance.

I still don't understand why the kid who plays young Bronson looks nothing like him. The kid has a completely different body type. The kid is naturally thick. Bronson is naturally lean.

I never heard that this was a sequel to GBU, who told you that? I for one didn't care for GBU and loved this.

I would agree a few scenes could have been trimmed, and there were a few moments that were too convenient (it's Hollywood), but overall I loved this.

Henry Fonda was a great bad guy, he has such a nice innocent face, it makes it all more menacing when he's doing that smile as he's killing someone.

This was not full of action, that is for sure, I actually felt as you do the first time I watched it because I was expecting a typical shoot um up Bronson style film, but I luckily gave it a 2nd chance and the 2nd time around I saw what they were going for and it worked perfectly for me.

Doesn't hit everyone the same tho.