TV release: 1989
Cinema release: 1988/1989
TV runtime: A Short Film About Killing (84 mins.), A Short Film About Love (86 mins.)
Cinema runtime: 600 mins.

You can get a lot done in ten hours – fly to Mumbai, remake the Eiffel Tower from matchsticks, master the stepover in FIFA 11 or take a really long nap. And if you’re feeling especially worthy, you can watch The Decalogue, Krzysztof Kieslowski’s stunning Warsaw-set opus of love, death and big grey buildings. It was based on the Ten Commandments, each episode taking a different bit of Moses’ mighty tablets as its theme, and, perhaps inevitably, found little favour with the Communist government. More surprisingly, it also upset the Catholic Church, aggrieved when the bit about coverting your neighbour’s ass was taken a bit more literally than they’d expected.

Kieslowski initially planned to find a separate director for each of the hour-long TV episodes but, along with co-writer Krzysztof Piesiewicz, couldn’t bring himself to hand overcreative control. Not only did he helm each episode, but he spun off Decalogue V (Murder) and VI (Adultery) into two features. Filled with drifters, peeping toms and lost souls, neither A Short Film About Killing or A Short Film About Love were exactly fluffied up for cinemas. Both were as brutal, compelling and insightful as the TV series. And that slice of TV was declared a masterpiece by Stanley Kubrick, no less, something he never said about ChiPs.