In this work, a three-step finite-element analysis was conducted to study the behavior of wear-resistant coatings on soft substrates. Initially, a mesh simulating a system with one hard and elastic film on an elastic-plastic aluminum substrate was developed considering the presence of cracks in the film. A sequence of loading steps was then applied to simulate the deposition (intrinsic) stresses, thermal (extrinsic) stresses and contact stresses during the indentation with normal forces, respectively. Crack propagation was allowed during the indentation step. The influence of film thickness, fracture toughness and elastic modulus was studied based on the radial and shear stresses that developed at the film surface and at the film/substrate inter-face. The results indicated that, under the conditions studied, film cracking was favored in systems with lower thickness and high elastic modulus. The effect of film cracking was also analyzed and a good qualitative comparison was obtained with results found in the literature.