A man attending a movie in a US cinema has been stabbed after asking a woman to turn off he phone.

The man was stabbed in the neck with a meat thermometer after tapping the woman on the shoulder to ask her to desist from making and receiving calls.

The incident, which happened at a cinema in Lancaster, Los Angeles, turned nasty when the man was apparently attacked by the woman's boyfriend.

Witnesses have said the woman was talking at the start of the film, which is when the altercation took place.

The man needed hospitilisation after it had been determined he had been stabbed, while two other people who tried to defend him were also injured.

The assailants managed to escape.