The project was conceived by Michael Colgan, artistic director of Dublin's Gate Theatre.
The films never enjoyed a general cinematic release, but, in September 2001, all nineteen were screened at the Barbican Centre in London.
They were also released in a number of videos and as a four-DVD box set, comprising a souvenir programme and numerous additional features.
A documentary video, titled Check the Gate: Putting Beckett on Film and directed by Pearse Lehane, was released on 5 February 2003.
Of directing the film version, Michael Lindsay-Hogg said, "Beckett creates an amazing blend of comedy, high wit and an almost unbearable poignancy in a funny yet heartbreaking image of man's fate.
With the camera, you can pick those moments and emphasise them, making Beckett's rare and extraordinary words all the more intimate [...].
Samuel Beckett would have said it's about two men waiting on the side of the road for someone to turn up.
That's why it's so great for the audience to be part of it: they fill in a lot of the blanks; it works in their imaginations.
Michael Dwyer, film correspondent of The Irish Times, called it "commendably ambitious and remarkably successful, a truly unique collection".