This work aims to further increase performance of friction and wear of arc ion plated TiAlN film, and study the influence of element Y on microstructure, hardness, elasticity modulus and friction and wear performance of arc ion plated TiAlN film on CrNi3MoVA steel. Two nitride films were prepared on CrNi3MoVA steel by arc ion plating technology with Ti-50Al and Ti-49Al-2Y (at.%) alloy targets. The hardness, elasticity modulus and friction coefficient of the two films were tested by the nanoindentor and the friction and wear testing machine, respectively. Then the morphologies, composition and phase structure before and after wearing were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectrum (EDS) and grazing incidence X-Ray diffraction (GIXRD). Y reduced the grain size of the TiAlN film and made the TiAlN film transform from the columnar microstructure to the nearly equiaxed one. The hardness of the TiAlYN film was about 25% more than that of the TiAlN film and the elasticity modulus of the TiAlYN film was close to that of TiAlN film. When the Si3N4 ball was used as one of the friction pair under the wear condition that the load was 20 N, the reciprocating travel was 10 millimeter and the velocity was 400 rounds per minute, the steady friction coefficient of the TiAlN film was 0.70~0.75, while that of the TiAlYN film was 0.60~0.65. The wear rate of the TiAlYN film was about 47% less than that of the TiAlN film. The wear mechanism of both the TiAlN film and the TiAlYN film was mainly characterized as scrape abrasion, and the failure mechanism of the TiAlN film was mainly the spalling caused by brittle cracks. The Y added in TiAlN film has a significant function of antifriction and wear resistance, and increases the cracking and spalling resistance of the TiAlN film in the course of frictional wear.