Dekalog

Dekalog
Blu-ray box set cover
Written by
Directed byKrzysztof Kieślowski
StarringArtur Barciś
see below
Music byZbigniew Preisner
Country of originPoland
Original languagePolish
Production
ProducerRyszard Chutkowski
Cinematography
EditorEwa Smal
Running time572 minutes
Production companies
Budget$100,000 (all parts)
Original release
Release10 December 1989 (1989-12-10) 
29 June 1990 (1990-06-29)

Dekalog (pronounced [dɛˈkalɔg], also known as Dekalog: The Ten Commandments and The Decalogue) is a 1989 Polish drama television miniseries directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski and co-written by Kieślowski with Krzysztof Piesiewicz, with music by Zbigniew Preisner. It consists of ten one-hour films, inspired by the decalogue of the Ten Commandments. Each installment explores characters facing one or several moral or ethical dilemmas as they reside in an austere housing project in 1980s Poland.

Exhibited in its entirety at the 46th Venice International Film Festival, the series, Kieślowski's most acclaimed work, was said in 2002 to be "the best dramatic work ever done specifically for television" and has won numerous international awards, though it did not receive wide release outside Europe until the late 1990s. It is one of fifteen films listed in the category "Values" on the Vatican film list. In 1991, filmmaker Stanley Kubrick wrote an admiring foreword to the published screenplay, wherein Dekalog is the only masterpiece he could think of.