Copper and gold evaporated films of thicknesses between 500 and 2500 Å have been bombarded at liquid‐nitrogen temperature with 4–10‐keV He ion beams. The electrical resistivities of these films increase with dose without saturation, and the values of these changes in the thinner films approach tens of &mgr;&OHgr; cm at a dose of 1017ions/cm2. About 80% of the resistivity changes induced in copper and about 60% of the resistivity changes induced in gold are recovered after annealing to 453 K. The remarkable peaks of the thermal recoveries are mainly observed in stage II. The nature of the evaporated metal films closely relates to the large resistivity changes, which are also affected by bombarding with low‐energy ions.