Stanley Kubrick has said writers Krzysztof Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz "have the very rare ability to dramatize their ideas rather than just talking about them".
The ten films are titled simply by number (e.g. Dekalog: One). According to Roger Ebert's introduction to the DVD set, Kieslowski said that the films did not correspond exactly to the commandments, and never used their names himself.
Kieslowski expanded Five and Six into longer feature films (A Short Film About Killing and A Short Film About Love), using the same cast and changing the stories slightly. This was part of a contractual obligation with the producers, since feature films were easier to distribute outside Poland. In 2000, the series was released on five DVDs, each containing two parts of about 2 hours.
Kieslowski originally intended to produce the series and hire ten different directors, but decided to direct all of the films himself.
He used a different cinematographer for each episode except III and IX, in both of which Piotr Sobocinski was director of photography.