To provide a cellulose ester-based optical film which can be manufactured by melting casting, has small retardation, has no failure called horseback failure or winding core transfer and has no problem that a wrinkle is easily produced when film winding starts and by which a clear moving image can be obtained and further to provide a polarizing plate and a display apparatus using the optical film.

A manufacturing process of the optical film is characterized in that a composition containing cellulose ester and a polymer (I) described below is subjected to film formation by melting casting to form a web and the web is subjected to stretching treatment at least in one direction with a stretching ratio of 1.1 times and 5.0 times. The polymer (I) can be obtained by copolymerization of an ethylenic unsaturated monomer having a partial structure expressed by a general formula (1) and at least one kind of the ethylenic unsaturated monomer containing an aromatic group which may have a substitute or a heterocyclic group which may have the substitute or a cycloalkyl group which may have the substitute.