The present investigation focuses on the research of the nonlinear vibration of a cantilevered FGMs rectangular plate subjected to the transversal excitation. Materials properties of the constituents are graded in the thickness direction according to a power law distribution and are assumed to be temperature‐dependent and vary along the thickness direction. In the framework of the Reddy’s Third‐order shear deformation plate theory, the governing equations of motion for the cantilever FGMs rectangular plate are derived by using the Hamilton’s principle. The thermal effect due to one‐dimensional temperature gradient is included in the analysis. The equations of motion can be reduced two‐degree‐of‐freedom nonlinear system under the external excitations using the Galerkin’s method. Using numerical method, the control equations are analyzed to obtain the response curves. A detailed parametric study is conducted to show the influences of the material properties on dynamic responses of the nonlinear vibration of the cantilever FGM plate.