For instance, in D. W. Griffith's A Corner in Wheat (1909), the film cross-cuts between the activities of rich businessmen and poor people waiting in line for bread.
[3] Increasing the rapidity between two different actions may add tension to a scene, much in the same manner of using short, declarative sentences in a work of literature.
Mrinal Sen has used cross-cutting effectively in his agit-prop film Interview, which achieved significant commercial success.
Christopher Nolan uses cross-cutting extensively in films such as Interstellar, The Dark Knight and Inception - particularly in the latter, in which sequences depict multiple simultaneous levels of consciousness.
[1] Cloud Atlas is known for its numerous cross-cuts between the film's six different stories, some lasting only a few seconds yet spanning across hundreds of years in different locations around the world.