The elastic theory of indentation on nitride films/steel systems showed distribution of stresses (shear stress, radial stress and circumferential stress) near the interface and in the film. The difference in values for each stress along the distance to the load center increased with increasing Poisson's ratios of steels. The shear stresses (sigma(rz)) had the maximum value at a distance to the load center and the difference became more significant with increasing Poisson's ratios of steel substrates ( from 0.2-0.3 of Poisson's ratio for high-speed steels to 0.3-0.35 for stainless steels), which accounted for the large amount of cracks inside the indent cavity of nitride films/stainless steel in spite of the smoothness outside the cavity. The calculation of sigma(r) and sigma(z) showed that the differences in nitride films/steel stress increased with increasing Poisson's ratios of steels, which also facilitated the formation of ring cracks in the film of nitride films/stainless steel composite. Indentation examination revealed the large amount of cracks inside the indent cavity of nitride film/stainless steel but smooth surface outside the cavity. These were formed under the high sinusoidal shear stress and circumferential radial stress due to the higher Poisson's ratio of stainless steel and the plastic deformation due to the lower yield stress of stainless steel (SS), which induced more local residual stresses, whereas some cracks or spalling observed around the cavity and no cracks inside the cavity were attributed to the edge effect when the conical indenter strained the surface downward for nitride film/high-speed steel (HSS) system.