This paper describes an exploratory study on the characterization of oil heavy-end fractions through pyrolysis coupled with gas chromatography. A pulse heating pyrolyzer with a platinum-strip sample holder, directly coupled with a capillary column gas chromatograph and equipped with a universal detector (FID) and a sulfur-selective detector (FPD), was used for that purpose. An analysis of vacuum residua, asphaltenes and resins from different crudes was made, as well as analogous fractions from the hydrocracking products of these vacuum residua. Hydrocarbon qualitative profiles (pyrograms) were very much alike for all fractions studied. However, some differences were observed in pyrogam intensity. In general, fractions from untreated samples showed more intense signals than those from the hydrotreated ones. Besides, each of the fractions from vacuum residua generated more intense pyrograms than the combination thereof (entire residue). It was possible to correlate the processability of a vacuum residue during hydrocracking and its hydrocarbon yield in analytical pyrolysis.