To provide an optical film which enlarges a viewing angle, which shows no decrease in light diffusing performance to improve visibility such as suppressing decrease in contrast, reversed gray scale or changes in hue even when a viewing angle in an observation direction is changed, which is free from whitening of the surface in black display, which can stably control a light diffusing function and which has high production yield without spot defects by coarse particles, and to provide an antireflection film, a polarizing plate, and an image display apparatus using the above film.

The optical film 1 has an optical functional layer 3 containing light transmitting resin fine particles 4 in a light transmitting resin, wherein the light transmitting resin particles 4 consist of fine particles of a resin containing a polymer obtained by polymerizing a component containing at least a polymerizable crosslinking agent and a polymerizable macro monomer. The antireflection film is obtained by applying a low refractive index layer on the above film. The polarizing plate has the above antireflection film. The image display apparatus is equipped with the above antireflection film or the above polarizing plate.

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