The impact wear resistance and reliability of Diamond-like carbon (DLC), Hydrogenated diamond-like carbon (HDLC) and Hydrogenated diamond-like carbon with WC transition layer (WC HDLC) films and their GCr15 and H62 substrates were evaluated by reproducible impact wear characterization method. The test results show that three film-substrate systems on H62 have obviously failure and severe impact deformation. However, three film-substrate systems on GCr15 possessed better impact wear resistance, compared to three film-substrate systems on H62. The fatigue failure resistance of the film increases with the increase in the substrate hardness. In addition, the impact force will increase as the hardness of the film on the soft substrate increases, but the hardness of the film on the hard substrate has little effect on the impact force. Among six film-substrate systems tested, HDLC films with low hardness and high adhesion regardless of whether the substrate is soft or hard are most suitable for applications involving impact dynamic loads.