A selectively absorptive, mulitlayer wire-grid polarizer for polarizing incident light includes a stack of thin film layers disposed over a substrate, including a wire-grid array of elongated metal elements having a period less than half the wavelength of the light. One of the layers can include a thin film layer with a refractive index greater than a refractive index of the substrate. One of the thin film layers can include a dielectric array of non-metal elements. One of the layers includes a material that is optically absorptive to the incident light.