Due to the crystal anisotropy, highly oriented films normally exhibit unique properties and performances. In this paper, Ag films were deposited using arc ion plating (AIP) at different substrate temperatures, substrate bias voltages and Ar pressures, and the relationship between the preferred orientation and deposition parameter of the films was investigated. The results exhibited that the preferred orientation of Ag films was influenced significantly by the deposition parameter due to the competition between the surface- and strain-energy minimization, and so both Ag films that exhibited highly preferred orientations of (1 1 1) and (2 0 0), respectively, were obtained at the optimum conditions. The relatively low friction was observed from the Ag film with highly preferred orientations of (1 1 1) because the (1 1 1) plane was the slip plane of face-centred cubic crystals.