The aim of this article is to provide methods for constructing smooth projective complex varieties with ample cotangent bundle. We prove that the intersection of at least n/2 sufficiently ample general hypersurfaces in a complex abelian variety of dimension n has ample cotangent bundle. We also discuss analogous questions for complete intersections in the projective space. Finally, we present an unpublished result of Bogomolov which states that a general linear section of small dimension of a product of sufficiently many smooth projective varieties with big cotangent bundle has ample cotangent bundle.