A Short Film About Love · reception & legacy

1988 · Krzysztof Kieślowski

How A Short Film About Love has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

A festival darling from the start — it took prizes at San Sebastián in 1988 as part of Kieślowski's international breakthrough — but the streaming/Letterboxd era turned it from 'the other Dekalog spin-off' into one of the highest-rated romances on the platform, routinely out-scoring far more famous love stories.

What's debated

The eternal cinephile debate: do you watch this or Dekalog: Six — the hour-long TV version with the famously different, colder ending — and which one is the 'real' film?

Its footprint

The exchange where Magda demands to know what the boy who spies on her actually wants — and he answers 'Nothing' — is endlessly quoted in reviews, a shorthand for love stripped of every transactional motive.

Where it stands

A 'you must have seen this' pillar of the Kieślowski canon and a fixture of Letterboxd's most-loved lists — the entry point people recommend before sending you off to the full Dekalog.

★ Did you know? The film only exists because Kieślowski's deal for financing the Dekalog TV series involved expanding two of its ten episodes into theatrical features — this and A Short Film About Killing — and he gave the cinema version of Love an ending different from its television twin.