As the recording density increasing in hard disk drives (HDDs), the head disk interface (HDI) spacing is decreasing during its operation of reading and writing. The meniscus is formed or the lubricant picks up when the head slider contacts with the liquid lubricant film on the disk surface, which makes the lubricant to transfer. Therefore, the transfer process of observing lubricant film and its dynamic change characteristics on the head are important aspects for studying the performance of lubricant. A vertical-objective-based ellipsometric microscope (VEM) is developed. The linear relationship between the thickness and the light intensity is obtained by phase shift of polarizer, which realizes the dynamic visualization of lubricant film on the surface of the head. The present microscope and illumination system are improved. In the experiment, the nonpolar perfluoropolyether(PFPE) lubricant Z03 is applied on the head to calibrate the ellipsometric microscope. The polar PFPE lubricant Zdol4000 is applied as the sample. Its dewetting phenomenon on the surface of the head is observed. The result shows that the lateral resolution of the microscope is 0.36 μm. The proposed method can be used for the visual observation of the nanometer-thick lubricant films.