I’ve been corresponding with the editor of a film magazine about my project, leading him to go through the list to see how many he had seen. His tally: 994. The only six films he hasn’t seen: Pakeeezah, My Neighbor Tortroro, Hart of London, the Iranian Still Life by Salesss, Ghatak’s Subarnareka, and Kaagaz ke Phool.  As far as I know this is the closest anyone on record has come to seeing all 1000 films on the list.  (Though I’m in no hurry to ask Richard Pena).

The film magazine editor prefers to go unnamed because he doesn’t want to be quizzed on the 994 films he claims to have seen.  He writes, “Seeing them doesn’t mean you have photographic recall of scenes and details…I recently chatted with Glenn Kenny at a friend’s birthday party and he was going on about crane shots at the end of “The Gang’s All Here.” Although I saw that film about 20 years ago, I certainly didn’t remember the crane shots.”