On account of limited knowledge of the breakup of power law liquid film, the process of its disintegration and atomization was studied by using a planar liquid film. A linear stability analysis was adopted to predict the breakup characteristics of the power law film. The predicting formulas of stripping breakup length and diameter of ligament were put forward presently. Through high-speed photography and laser light sheet illumination, different breakup characteristics of flat power law film under different conditions were derived. The characteristic dimension of breakup regimes were defined and extracted. The effects of several parameters (injection pressure, ambient pressure, nozzle structure and fluid property) on the stripping breakup length and spray angle were investigated. The results revealed that increasing both the velocity of liquid film and the ambient pressure facilitated the breakup of film, reduced the stripping breakup length and enlarged the spray angle in different extents. The comparison between theoretical and experimental results was conducted to validate the feasibility of the linear stability theory. (C) 2015 The Chemical Industry and Engineering Society of China, and Chemical Industry Press. All rights reserved.