P.S.: Who Is The Greatest Western Movie Star After Wayne, Eastwood, Cooper, Scott, and Mix

Sutherland did 3, “Forsaken” (2015) is the third. He did it co-starring with his father.  And he did 2 more as a modern cowboy which I did not count.

Elam was on along with Henry Morgan, Paul Fix, and Harry Carey Jr. but I kicked them off because they were mainly supporting character actors. (Morgan played a lot of villains supporting characters before he starred in “Dragnet”.)

DiCaprio has 3 westerns. Believe it or not, the IMDB listed “Django Unchained” and The Revenant as westerns along with The Quick and the Dead.

Crowe, Bale, and Jackson all did 2. Crowe definitely has western acting down in The Quick and the Dead and 3:10 to Yuma (and out acted Bale in that one).

I’ll add Garner and oust Mcintire… Jackson too.

The fact that IMDb included The Revenant in the Western genre may be a signal that the definition being followed may be too imprecise. To be fair, the only Western genre motif element absent from the particular movie really is the single-action revolver. I'm starting to think that the presence and discharge of such a firearm ought to be a requirement in order for a story to belong to the Western genre, but of course, I'm neglecting to account for double-action revolvers and magazine-loaded (semiautomatic) pistols, that could've been in use before 1915.

@jeorj_euler​ I do not believe in the concept of the modern western.  No Country For Old Men is a modern film and is not a western in any way, shape, or form.  That it is also a piece of garbage has nothing to do with the genre.  

​ , “The Relevant” belongs to the seldom filmed sub genre of western films called “Early west” or “western Frontier” films that depicts the early western frontier before the civil war or the arrival of the ranchers when the western frontier had mountain men and fur trappers, buffaloes and Indians. These films generally depict the early settlements and when flintlocks were used. Any film depicting Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, or any one of the books in James Fenimore Cooper’s “Leatherstocking Tales” (aka: The Last of the Mohicans the best known of the tales and filmed several times). Drums Along The Mohawk (1939), Jeremiah Johnson (1972), The Fighting Kentuckian (1949), and Far Horizons (1955) all belong to this type of western. It is not new at all. How the West Was Won begins in 1830 near the end of the era of the mountain man and fur trapper. 
all you need to have a western is the American frontier that is hostile, sparsely populated with no law, or little of it, and you have to depend on yourself for your safety, and you have a western. 
“The Relevant” employs a common plot line of westerns: crime, pursuit, and retribution.

I must say that I agree with dgranger there. I have followed an undergrad course in Film History (recorded and posted on YouTube by the MIT, but still a real undergrad course). There were two classes on the Western genre. I have transcripted everything David Thornburn, the teacher, said about the western genre, it is very extensive, I will just copy-paste what relates to the current argument.

Note 1: There are a lot of spelling mistakes because I had to transcript as fast as he was talking. It is not an easy task.

Note 2: In parenthesis, I wrote my own commentaries. Of course, this MIT lecturer was not talking about Quebec's history.

It tells a founding story, it tells the same story the founding of community of a nation. The Western is the United States his form of a kind of story that every societies has (Comme les romans du terroires au Québec), the ancient greeks had a founding mythology illiade and odyssey, the tudor had that mythology grounded in Shakespeare’s play. Thes efoundings story or always in some sens fantasies or fiction.

The movies began when the West started to disappear, it was still historically actual (West: 1860-1890). The West is yes a period of the beginning of civilisation that early western acknowledge, but also a period more bleak of extermination/genocide of Indians and of the buffalos. Even before the real west was over, even became it became history, it was mythologized, it became in idea in pop culture. The basic conventions of the west was established

Not only was there a real historical background to the western, and a profound form of popular culture, (dime novels, literray novels, western shows). But, there was also a final touch,. Why it was so important an continues to be, gives American a sense itself.

Intellectual culture: “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” or What makes the united states” unique. The continuously advancing frontier according to him allowed people to escape into a new life, to find possibilitie, to escape confinement of social class. The sense of the frontier made according to him the United States a uniquely individualistic and a uniquely free society. What Turner had done was defining a myth in fact. One of the things that I wrong is that hypothesis exclude the natives who were already there and who were chased from their territories.

TL;DR: The western is a genre about the founding of a community, the US border, and greater sense of freedom. Even the western films that do not explicitly deal with this idea are implicitly set and shaped by this era.

@cinephile​ To your point, I'll note that IMDb lists both Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) (set in New York) and The Yearling (1946) (set in Florida) as Westerns.

As for the original question, Joel McCrea and Jimmy Stewart seem like pretty good choices; other good candidates can be found at Great Western Performers - National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

@TheOldJalapenoman​ no to singing cowboys. When I saw a jeep in Roy Rogers film, I said this is not a western but a modern west film.

and no to television western series because that is what I’m considering for another poll. Otherwise you would have seen Steve McQueen on here for “Wanted Dead or Alive” and “Nevada Smith”. Wait a minute! I forgot about “Tom Horn”. McQueen might get on. “junior Bonner” doesn’t count.

@dgranger​ Don't forget that Steve McQueen was in one of the greatest westerns ever made... "THe Magnificent Seven."  He also did Nevada Smith (off the top of my head).

Once again, you are considering one, two, or three "modern westerns" (which generally are not real westerns) as being more important than the dozens of westerns done by a Ward Bond?

No one outside of a fanboy would consider someone like Cage, Crowe, or DeCraprio as being the greatest western star of all time.    Unfortunately, since they are the only actors on the list that the fifteen year olds on this site have heard of, they would all be in the top five.

@dgranger​ Roy did a lot of films that were set in the old west without his driving a jeep,  Even when I was a kid, I hated the singing cowboys and never watched those films and never considered them as true westerns.

@TheOldJalapenoman​  Roy rode the horse Trigger. Roy owned the jeep but Pat Brady drove it.