High quality hetero-epitaxial CeO 2 films are grown on MgO substrates using BaSnO 3 buffer layers. CeO 2 films and BaSnO 3 buffer layers are grown by a pulsed laser deposition method. It is found that the crystallinity of the CeO 2 films directly grown on MgO substrates is quite poor. However when we grow CeO 2 films on MgO substrates with a BaSnO 3 buffer layer, the crystallinity of CeO 2 films is improved from that of the directly grown CeO 2 films. Also the estimated in-plane crystallinity () of the CeO 2 films on the BaSnO 3 buffer layers is much improved by the introduction of the buffer layers. One of the reasons for high quality CeO 2 films are grown on MgO substrates by the introduction of BaSnO 3 buffer layers is the lattice matching between the CeO 2 films and the MgO substrates. The CeO 2 films grow in a 45 rotated mode to the BaSnO 3 buffered MgO substrates, then the lattice mismatch between the sublattice of the CeO 2 films and the MgO substrates is calculated to be 9.3%, while that of the CeO 2 films on MgO substrates in a cube on cube mode is over 25%.