A soundtrack by a rock star has become a movie must-have

IT'S BECOMING an increasingly important bit of movie casting. You've got your lead actors, your crackling dialogue and your gleaming locations - now all you need is a perfectly matched rock musician to write your soundtrack.

Following a best original soundtrack Oscar win for The Social Network and Trent Reznor, a first-time film scorer better known as the frontman of industrial metal band Nine Inch Nails, a few British stars are moving into the same field.

Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys dips a toe in the water by singing five new songs on Richard Ayoade's directorial debut, Submarine - in cinemas next weekend with the soundtrack released by Domino on Monday. Aside from being set in Swansea instead of Turner's Sheffield, this sweet, funny tale of a faltering relationship between duffel-coated teens is perfect for Turner. The serious, awkward lead actor, Craig Roberts, playing tortured romantic Oliver Tate, even looks like him.

His songs show his softer side - crooned, mostly acoustic ballads that find humour in the gloom. "You look like you've been for breakfast at the Heartbreak Hotel," he coos. There's a richness and subtlety to the music that is more reminiscent of the smooth sounds of his Sheffield neighbour Richard Hawley than the sneering rock'n'roll of his main band. The film's barren beaches and industrial estates have a raw beauty enhanced by his accompaniment.

Ayoade, best known as computer geek Moss from Channel 4's The IT Crowd, had already made pop videos for Arctic Monkeys and Turner's other band The Last Shadow Puppets, as well as an Arctic Monkeys concert film. Even if they hadn't had a prior working relationship, though, Turner was the perfect choice for a film that finds loveliness in the mundane life of a typical teenage introvert. "Alex has a good deadpan face and I imagine he was quite an intense teenager like Oliver," the director has said.

It's a far more effective technique to attach one perfectly matched music name to a score, as opposed to the Twilight saga method of bunging together all the latest indie favourites on a hit album, regardless of how relevant they are to the actual movie. A carefully chosen union can strengthen the whole project, as with previous successes such as Elliott Smith's Good Will Hunting, Badly Drawn Boy's About a Boy and Kimya Dawson's Juno.

Jonny Greenwood creates a powerful atmosphere on his soundtrack to the film of Haruki Murakami's novel Norwegian Wood, in cinemas from this weekend.With sparse, slow-moving strings, and a few acoustic tracks, it's a very different proposition from his new Radiohead album.

Equally challenging was Greenwood's soundtrack to Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, orchestral yet modern, never reduced to the background mush so common with film strings, and benefiting from periods of absence. The fact that even the brains behind one of our most experimental bands still feels that film music provides a necessary outlet is an indication of the field's strong appeal to smart rock musicians.

Daft Punk's thunderous recent score for Disney's sci-fi romp Tron: Legacy was also more effective for its electronic elements. It has proved so popular that a remix album is coming on 5 April through Disney featuring reworkings by big dance names such as Moby.

And there are more rock names where you might not expect them. Listen out for the guitar on Hans Zimmer's Oscar-nominated score for Inception - it's Johnny Marr. Meanwhile, Clint Mansell's ongoing success as the composer of scores including Black Swan and The Wrestler may come as a surprise to anyone who remembers him singing Dance of the Mad Bastards and Beaver Patrol with dance-pop clowns Pop Will Eat Itself.

So the next time your favourite musician seems to have gone too long without making an album, don't worry. They're probably all at the cinema.

• Norwegian Wood is in cinemas now. Submarine is released on 18 March.