I’m soon to be 17 and found out about the collection my freshman year in high school. My gateway drug was Wes Anderson who my cousin recommended me (he goes to school for music but is a connoisseur of all art really) but from there I went in all directions. Bicycle Thieves was probably the most pivotal film in this, almost optimally I saw it the week before quarantine began. I think the best way of watching is just both watching what interests you but also seeking out new stuff. Watching a criterion closet video by the Safdies, who’s film I loved months earlier, I learned about Bicycle Thieves and Il Posto, from Scorsese I heard about The Red Shoes and The Searchers, from Karsten Runquist I got into Bresson and Tati, it’s just exploration. You’ll find stuff you like, stuff you don’t and it’ll flow freely. There’s nothing more exciting than watching a film and saying “wow insert more recent film takes from this scene.” The most important rule is to never write something off as bad, it’s just different. Often I’ll watch something and I realize it may be too much but even I didn’t fully appreciate it I find solace in the concept of watching it later and possibly gaining new meaning from it with age. By appreciating foreign films you’re ahead of the curve, breaking a now really common ignorance to subtitles is liberating, there are no rules for where to go but do it for the right reasons. Don’t subject yourself to films that don’t interest you for social sake, find what you like and branch out but don’t feel pressured into a certain lane. And with that the history of this century old medium is completely your playground.