Abstract: The resistive broadening and the critical current density,of an epitaxial YBa₂Cu₃O_7-δ thin film at several fixed magnetic fields have been measured as a function of the angle between applied magneticfield and the film. The results show that the angular dependence of the characteristic temperature T* determined by different reduced resistivity criteria, the effective pinning potential and the critical current density follow the prediction of the intrinsic pinning model for the angle changing from 0° to 75°, illustrating the strong planar pinning mechanism. The anomalous peaks of the characteristic temperature T*, the effective pinning potential and the critical current density were observed near 90°, which indicate that 2D defects along c-axis are responsible for the effect of flux line pinning.