To provide a light-diffusing film having both satisfactory light-diffusing properties and satisfactory transmission sharpness and having a wide viewing angle and high front contrast and generating no white blur when applied to a liquid crystal display device, to provide a manufacturing method therefor, to provide a light diffusing polarizing plate using the light-diffusing film and to provide a liquid crystal display device.

The light-diffusing film has a light diffusing layer which is laminated on a substrate film and in which light-transmitting microparticles are diffused in a light-transmitting resin, wherein the light-transmitting microparticles include first light-transmitting microparticles having a weight-average diameter equal to or greater than 0.5 μm and less than 6 μm, and second light-transmitting microparticles having a weight-average diameter between 6 μm and 15 μm, the difference between the weight-average diameter of the first light-transmitting microparticles and that of the second light-transmitting microparticles is at least 2 μm, the light-transmitting microparticles constitute 22 to 60 parts of the diffusion layer based on 100 parts of the light-transmitting resin by weight, and the centerline average roughness of the surface of the light-diffusing layer is no greater than 0.2 μm. The method for manufacturing the light-diffusing film, the light diffusing polarizing plate using the light diffusing film and the liquid crystal display device are also provided.