Looking at the Media Study Design Key Knowledge we need to understand the "nature and function of and relationships between story elements in fictional media narrative, including: cause and effect."
Cause and Effect is what drives the narrative forward and engages the audience. It is a series or chain of events / actions that progress the direction of the narrative.
Cause and Effect often consists of character motivations. A character is motivated to achieve a goal, they go on this mission, this leads other characters to help / prevent this achievement.
Cause and Effect can be evident in both linear and non-linear films.
Within our linear narrative The Sixth Sense, Malcolm is motivated not to fail another patient (as he did with Vincent Grey), so he is motivated to help Cole. This leads Malcolm into Cole's life and he continues to try and gain Cole's trust to help him. Malcolm's new motivation therefore drives the rest of the narrative forward as he seeks to make up for his failure with Vincent.
Within our non-linear, circular structured narrative Snatch, we are first introduced to Turkish who is clearly motivated to get rid of the diamond. This is the end of the cause and effect chain of events and really we the audience spend the whole film trying to piece together how Turkish gets involved in the diamond mix-up. The entire film is essentially a series of events which drive the narrative, and help to provide situations where we are introduced to new characters.
Taser (Bird, 2013) This short film was a finalist for Tropfest 2013, and stars Firras Dirani (of Underbelly fame). The short has a very clear use of cause and effect in telling this story, and with the use of editing, is also able to structure time in an interesting way.