The measurement of mechanical properties of thin films is a major issue for the design of reliable microelectronic devices, microsensors or thin coatings. New simple microstructures actuated through the release of internally stressed long beams made of high temperature, low pressure chemical vapour deposition silicon nitride have been developed to test under uniaxial tension submicron thin film material specimens. The relative displacement between a fixed and a moving cursor is used to determine the strain applied to the specimen. The stress is inferred based on the mismatch strain and Young's modulus of the silicon nitride actuator beam. By multiplying the tensile test microstructures with different lengths, the full stress–strain curve characterizing the thin material sample is generated from which the elastic stiffness, yield strength, ductility and fracture stress can be extracted. The potential of the method is demonstrated through applications on both brittle and ductile thin films. The Young's modulus of 238 GPa for a 373 nm thick silicon nitride film is extracted and size effects are observed for the yield strength of pure aluminium with a value of 220 and 550 MPa, respectively, for 373 and 205 nm thick films. An original variant of the procedure based on this new test microstructure for measuring Young's modulus is also presented.