The main purpose of the study is to apply the Ritz method based on the three-dimensional elasticity theory to determine the buckling loads and vibrational frequencies of preloaded functionally graded material rectangular plates with side cracks. The admissible functions of the Ritz method are consist of regular polynomials in the thickness direction (z direction) and the functions in x-y plane constructed by the moving least square method with a set of enriched basis functions, which show the stress singularities at the front of a crack and the displacement discontinuity across the crack.The functionally graded material under consideration is made of aluminum and ceramic,and the variations of material properties in the thickness direction follow a simple power law.The convergence studies of buckling loads and vibrational frequencies of cantilevered FGM rectangular plates with vertical side cracks are conducted to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed approach. Then, the proposed approach is further employed to investigate the effects of boundary conditions, loading conditions, variations of material properties, plate thickness, and crack lengths, angles,and locations on the buckling loads and vibration frequencies of side-cracked FGM rectangular plates. The results are tabulated and the vibration and buckling mode shapes are also shown. Most of the results are reported for the first time and can be used as standard to judge the accuracy of other numerical methods and various plate theories.