Man Pushes Netflix Account To The Max, Watches 252 Movies In 30 Days

Are you a Netflix customer who feels like you don’t always get the most of your $7.99/month for unlimited streaming video? Well, one man decided to put Netflix and himself to the test by watching more than 400 hours of video in a month.

Mark Malkoff, who previously tested New Yorkers’ willingness to do anything for a free taxi ride and the limits of Apple store hospitality, started his Netflix movie-thon on April 16.

In the first week alone, he watched 60 films for a total of 95.55 hours. In fact, he says he didn’t leave his Queens apartment for a stretch of 155 hours that week, though he did manage to get Jason London, star of the Richard Linklater classic Dazed and Confused to pop by and provide running commentary on the film — and a shoulder rub.

By the halfway point of his endurance test, Malkoff had watched 117 films — a total of 189.4 hours — and had managed to get his per film cost down to $.068.

He did manage to slip out of the apartment, though he continued to watch movies on his iPhone and iPad. He even wrangled actor Andrew McCarthy to join him in the park for a viewing of St. Elmo’s Fire.

By the time Mark ended the 30-day experiment, he’d watched 252 films, including approximately 29.4 hours of closing credits.

He averaged more than 13 hours a day of movie watching for a total of 404.25 hours. More importantly, he only spent $.032/film.

Unfortunately, he says he also gained six pounds.

“Good thing there’s unlimited Netflix streaming,” Mark says. “Otherwise I would have had to subscribe to the 252 disc-at-a-time plan.”

Mark’s blog has the complete list of films, which starts out promising with The Graduate, Chinatown and Bonnie and Clyde but eventually begins to plumb the depths of Netflix’s streaming offerings like Battlefield Earth, Xanadu and Cop and a Half.

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