Inula species are medicinal and aromatic plants used for folk medicine extensively. In this work, hydrodistilled essential oil of Inula graveolens (Linnaeus) Desf. analyzed by GC-MS which revealed that bornyl acetate was the major product (69.15%). Camphene was the second major compound (11.11%). Antiproliferative activity of the essential oil and bornyl acetate was investigated on HeLa (human cervix carcinoma), HT29 (human colon carcinoma), A549 (human lung carcinoma), MCF7 (human breast adenocarcinoma) cancer cells and FL (human amnion cells) normal cells. The cytotoxicity was executed by a Lactate Dehydrogenase (LDH) Cytotoxicity Detection Kit. Essential oil and bornyl acetate displayed the outstanding activities on HeLa (IC50, 64.1, 72.0 mu g/mL), HT29 (IC50, 24.6, 60.5 mu g/mL), A549 (IC50, 28.3, 44.1 mu g/mL), MCF-7 (IC50, 66.5, 85.6 mu g/mL), and FL (IC50, 42.1, 50.6 mu g/mL) cell lines respectively.