1. The Director: These are people for whom the creative & artistic expression is the most important criteria. People who have revolutionarised cinema completely .

Picking up movies by the Director is a good place to get familiar with World cinema.

Past Masters: Akira Kurosawa, Andrei Tarkovsky, Bresson, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Federico Fellini, Francois Ozu, Francois Truffaut, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Melville, Jean Renoir, Kihachi Okamoto, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Ritwik Ghatak, Satyajit Ray, Stanley Kubrick.

Living Masters: : Abbas Kiarastomi, David Lynch, Gus Van Sant, Jim Jarmusch, Lars Von Trier, Majid Majidi, Mohsen and Sameera Makhmalbaf, Wim Wenders, Wong-Kar Wai, Woody Allen.

2. The plot: Always universal. Like music (and love!), cinema speaks a universal language and the techniques perfected by some of these directors have, over the years, become art forms and are emulated, even today by filmmakers around the globe. Many a Bollywood and Hollywood influence can be traced back to movies in this category.

Some examples - Sholay was adapted from The Seven Samurai. Reference : Wikipedia.

3. Nominations & Awards: Follow the films nominated or winning awards at Cannes, Venice,Berlin and Toronto.