Phase velocities of surface acoustic waves in several boron nitride films were investigated by Brillouin light scattering. In the case of films with predominantly hexagonal crystal structure, grown under conditions close to the nucleation threshold of cubic BN, four independent elastic constants have been determined from the dispersion of the Rayleigh and the first Sezawa mode. The large elastic anisotropy of up to c 11 /c 33 = 0.1 is attributed to a pronounced texture with the c-axes of the crystallites parallel to the film plane. In the case of cubic BN films the dispersion of the Rayleigh wave provides evidence for the existence of a more compliant layer at the substrate-film interface. The observed broadening of the Rayleigh mode is identified to be caused by the film morphology.