The importance of antibacterial materials for biomedical applications is growing nowadays. The presented article deals with the characterization of structural, mechanical and thermal properties and of antibacterial polymeric films based on polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and silver nitrate, which can find their applicability in wound dressing components and protective coating. The methods of transmission electron microscopy, UV-vis and XRD spectroscopy, optical microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, stress-strain analysis, and agar diffusion test were used to characterize the polymer films prepared. The results showed strong antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus already at the lowest addition level of silver nitrate. An improvement of mechanical properties (Young's modulus) was also noticed due to a modification of PVA with silver nitrate up to 1 wt. % of silver content. Furthermore, the results show a strong effect of the thermal history of the sample preparation on the degree of silver-ion reduction and formation of nanoparticles. (C) 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 110: 3178-3185, 2008