Two techniques allowing to determine mechanical characteristics of oxide films are presented. With the first one, the deflection/elongation, it is possible to study stresses developed in an oxide film during heating-cooling or isothermal treatments and oxide expansion coefficients. When results are compared to modeling, the behaviour laws for the oxide and the metal can be determined as well as the expansion coefficients and transformation phases can be detected. The second one concerns the 3-point bending tests and gives information on the toughness either of the oxide film or of the metal-oxide interfaces (or oxide-oxide interfaces). These two techniques are of prime importance for the estimation of the life time of high temperature materials.