Micro- and nanoelectromechanical systems (MEMS and NEMS) are increasingly spawning a wide range of sensing applications, including detection of mass, force, and spin. In addition, they can also be used as time reference devices and as basic tools to explore fundamental physical processes and dynamical effects. At small vibrational amplitudes these systems behave as linear mechanical devices. However as the amplitude increases, nonlinear effects are readily manifested. This becomes of central importance in all of the aforementioned fields of application. For example, nonlinear phenomena impose a fundamental limit for the minimum detectable frequency shift, while simultaneously enabling rich and complex dynamical behavior. Arguably the most utilized mathematical description of the deformation of MEMS and NEMS cantilever beams is Euler-Bernoulli theory. We observe that this theory accurately ( ) predicts the resonant frequencies and other linear parameters for the flexural vibration modes of thin cantilever beams of aspect ratios (AR = length/width) greater than two; see Appendix I. The generic Euler-Bernoulli theory implicitly assumes the beam to be one-dimensional and is formally valid in the asymptotic limit of infinite AR. For beams of finite AR and non-negligible thickness, it is sometimes necessary to include the effects of transverse or shear deformation respectively, although these effects are second-order and can be often ignored in experimental design and application. As introduced before, nonlinear behavior manifests for finite amplitude of motion. This is true not only at the micro- and nano-scale, but also for macroscopic structures such as airplane wings. Consequently, an effort to predict the dynamics of the nonlinear response and the parameters governing it has recently gained momentum.Nonlinearity in the dynamic response of mechanical structures can have a multitude of origins, including transduction effects (actuation/detection), material properties (nonlinear constitutive relations), non-ideal boundary conditions, damping mechanisms,adsorption/desorption processes, and geometric/inertial effects. Geometric nonlinearities can appear in any mechanical structure when large deformations induce a nonlinear relation between strain and curvature, thus modifying the effective stiffness of the structure. Inertial nonlinearities are typically induced through the generation of additional degrees of freedom in the motion, which serve to enhance the effective mass of the structure. The intrinsic (i.e. originating from the mechanical structure) nonlinear response of doubly clamped beams has been shown to be dominated by a geometric nonlinearity due to enhanced tension along the beam. Stiffening behavior is observed, which is accurately predicted by Euler-Bernoulli theory. In contrast, the nonlinear response of cantilever beams has received comparatively little attention. Most articles report theoretical investigations of the nonlinear response of these structures. These studies predict a stiffening nonlinearity for the fundamental mode, while the higher order modes are predicted to be softening in nature. Strikingly, experimental assessment of the validity of such calculations for the fundamental mode has been limited in geometrical range and statistical analysis, and has not provided measurements with linear transduction.In this article, we address this issue and present detailed experimental results for the intrinsic nonlinear resonant responses of nanomechanical cantilever beams. In particular, we study the first and second flexural out-of-plane modes. The fabrication of these devices and the transduction of their motion are optimized in order to minimize the effect of other sources of nonlinearity. We show that Euler-Bernoulli beam theory yields predictions for the first mode that significantly deviate from our experimentally observed data, especially for cantilevers of low AR. In contrast, excellent agreement between theory and measurement is observed for the second mode. These results have significant implications for experimental design and interpretation, and are expected to stimulate further improvement in theoretical modeling beyond Euler-Bernoulli beam theory, as we discuss below.