I saw this when I was really young and as a whole I didn't get it, but certain scenes affected me so much that I thought about them for years. Just watched it again for the first time in ages, and wow.

It's interesting to note that it was based on 9 unrelated short stories by Raymond Carver, but Altman pulled them together in 1 big story. The interweaving of plots isn't just superficial. The stories interact in a very significant way showing how different perspectives form different realities (for example Lily Tomlin's character experiencing a positive life-changing wake-up call that ends up being a horrible tragedy for someone else). Altman was a big fan of Kurosawa's Rashomon, the original multiple-reality film, and Altman's earlier film 3 Women had that theme. I think Short Cuts is where Altman really let loose and made his epic homage to Kurosawa/Rashomon. This is a brilliant film which gets high praise for its great cast, but I think even if it didn't have a well known cast it would hold up as a great film.