A New Zealand cinema has turned away a mother from the Oscar-winning R16 movie The Reader because her five-week-old baby was under-age.

Instead, a staff member at the Top Town Cinema in the South Island city of Blenheim recommended she see the M-rated movie Terminator Salvation.

Anna Straker, 33, went to the cinema on Monday morning with baby Emma, her mother-in-law, and a friend, she told the Marlborough Express.

After buying her ticket, a staff member saw Straker waiting in the foyer with her infant and told her the baby was too young to see the movie.

Top Town Cinema manager Duncan Mackenzie said staff had no choice in the matter and had to follow the law, lest the theatre be fined up to $NZ35,000 ($A27,560).

Straker said that "discretion and common sense" should have come into play.

But Mackenzie replied: "I have no more discretion here than a publican has with someone trying to get into a pub a day before they turn 18."

WELLINGTON NZPA