Silver nanocomposite films are found to be very effective material for anti-bacterial application. In the present work, sodium carboxylmethyl cellulose silver nanocomposite films (SCMC SNCF) were tried for antibacterial applications. To enhance their applicability novel film-silver nanoparticle-curcumin composites have been developed. SCMC SNCF are developed from sodium carboxylmethyl cellulose (SCMC), N,N 1 -methylenebisacrylamide (MBA) and silver nitrate solution. These films were characterized by FTIR, UV-visible, XRD, TGA, DSC and TEM techniques. The formed silver nanoparticles have an average particle size of ~15 nm as observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Curcumin loading into SCMC SNCF is achieved by diffusion mechanism. The UV-Visible analysis indicated that higher encapsulation of curcumin in the films with higher SCMC content. Further, it was observed that the presence of silver nanoparticles in the films enhanced the encapsulation of curcumin indicating an interaction between them. Moreover, the antibacterial activity showed that the SCMC films generated with silver nanoparticles have a synergistic effect in the antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli (E. coli). In order improve the healing efficacy as antibacterial agents, curcumin loaded with SCMC SNCFs were developed which showed significant inhibition of E. coli growth than the silver nanoparticles and curcumin alone film. Therefore, the present study clearly provides novel antimicrobial films which are potentially useful in preventing/treating infections. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.