Paulist Productions and its sister company Paulist Pictures are production companies for religious television and film projects, respectively. Paulist Productions was founded in 1960 by the Paulist priest Father Ellwood "Bud" Kieser to produce the religious television program Insight. Paulist Pictures was later formed for the purpose of film production, creating the features Romero (1989) and Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story (1996). Fr. Kieser was regarded as a champion of Roman Catholic heroes and entertainment that focuses on modern moral dilemma. After the death of Fr. Kieser in September 2000, Frank Desiderio C.S.P. became President of Paulist Productions and broadened the scope of the company to produce television documentaries for the History Channel, including "Visions Of Mary", "Stigmata", "Prophecies of Iraq", "Judas - Traitor or Friend", "Joseph: The Silent Saint", "The Twelve Apostles", "St. Peter: The Rock" and "Paul, The Apostle". "Healing And Prayer: Power Or Placebo" was also produced for A&E. In 2004 Paulist Productions released the made for television film Judas which aired on ABC and was written by multi-Emmy Award winning writer/producer Tom Fontana, who also served as Executive Producer on the film.
The latest feature-length documentary by Paulist Pictures is The Big Question: A Film About Forgiveness which has screened at 19 film festivals across the world and was awarded the Best Documentary Award at The Breckenridge Festival of Film and Best Feature Documentary from The Santa Fe Metaphysical Film Festival, both in 2008 respectively. Paulist Productions has continued to expand its distribution platform in recent years by creating content for the web, such as the webisode series Tyler's Ride.
Fr. Desiderio was succeeded as President of Paulist Productions by Fr Eric Andrews, CSP, in September 2009.
The company is associated with the Humanitas Prize, also founded by Father Kieser.