A group of 14 Thai film fanatics are claiming a new world record after watching movies for 51 hours without falling asleep.

More than 400 participants began the film marathon at the Entertainment Global Village cinema in Bangkok on Friday.

Of that number, 64 lasted until Sunday, when they watched their 19th film, breaking the previous record of 37 hours and 25 minutes set by a Hungarian.

But the hard core of 14 then stayed on to share 100,000 baht ($2,702) prize money offered to whoever sat through the complete programme of 25 movies.

Soon after the first new record was set, contestants started nodding off rapidly.

They were ushered into beds on site or into the arms of waiting relatives - watching the endurance test by closed-circuit televisions set up in the cinema lobby.

Contestants were only allowed to take five-minute rests after every movie and another 15 minutes at the end of three films for meals.

They have had to take urine tests in case they tried to cheat by using stimulants and were monitored by an infrared camera to check if they fell asleep.

The cinema plans to send a video of the whole event to the Guinness Book of Records to get confirmation of the record.