An actress was secretly filmed walking the streets of New York for 10 hours in a powerful demonstration of the street harassment and catcalling the Big Apple's women have to put up with.

The video of Shoshana B Roberts - called '10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman' - has been watched over five million times since being posted on Tuesday.

It was commissioned by the Hollaback advocacy group, which is calling for an end to the street harassment of women.

In the video, men on the streets can be heard making remarks about Roberts and her appearance as she walks by.

When she ignores one man's come-on, he rudely tells her: "Somebody is acknowledging you for being beautiful - you should say thank you."

Others say to her "What's up beautiful", "Damn" and "Hey baby".

In one creepy segment, a man says "good morning" to her and proceeds to walk alongside her silently for the next five minutes despite her ignoring him.

Later in the video, a second man is filmed coming alongside her saying "You don't want to talk?"  Even though she refuses to interact with him, he continues to walk beside her and try and get her number.

The video is just a snapshot of what Roberts encountered as the video ends with a still of text saying that over a hundred instances of verbal street harassment took place in the 10 hours of recording.

"This doesn't include the countless winks, whistles, etc," the video claimed.

Hollaback said on its Twitter that the actress was "starting to get rape threats" as a result of the video.

Watch the video below: