An optical laminate having layer A having a resin having a negative intrinsic birefringence and at least one layer B having a transparent resin, having substantially no orientation and laminated at least on one face of layer A and satisfies a relation |Re(A)|>|Re(B)|, wherein Re(A) and Re(B) represent in-plane retardations of layer A and layer B, respectively, measured with light having a wavelength of 400 to 700 nm, an optical element having a laminate of the optical laminate and a polarizer plate, and a liquid crystal display device using at least one sheet of the optical laminate. In the liquid crystal display device, optical compensation can be made in accordance with the mode of the liquid crystal display by the three dimensional control of the refractive index, and the liquid crystal display device provides an image display with liquid crystals exhibiting small change in the phase contrast depending on the viewing angle.