The behavior of point contact elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) films under pure rolling short stroke reciprocating motion is investigated using both optical interferometry technique and theoretical analysis. The EHL films are recorded with a high-speed color camera and simulated with multigrid techniques. General variation of oil film under point contact reciprocating motion is explained by a comparison between a fully flooded simulation and an experiment with a frequency of 7.78 Hz. Influence of starvation is considered by another simulation under a higher working frequency of 14.4 Hz and the simulated results are compared with experimental results. Both simulations show good agreements quantitatively with experiments. In addition, general tribo-characteristics of EHL under fully flooded and starved conditions are discussed. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.