Display omitted •The iron oxide film shows 60 % absorbance for harmful blue light from 400 to 450 nm.•The film exhibits 96 % transmittance for the other visible light.•The hydrophobic-modified film has good humid-heat stability.•The film has no distinguishable effect on display quality.•The film can effectively protect human ARPE-19 cells from blue light damage. With the increasing application of display and lighting devices, the potential injury to human eyes due to blue light has been attracting significant attention. While current anti-blue light films are complex, costly and low stability in humid environments. In this work, anti-blue light films were fabricated using iron oxide as blue light absorbent and polyvinylpyrrolidone as surfactant, under various Fe3+ concentrations and annealing temperatures. Particularly, the films annealed at 300 °C exhibited 60 % absorption rate of blue light in 400–450 nm wavelength range on average and still maintained 96 % transmittance to 500–800 nm visible light. Moreover, the films coated with 1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorodecyltriethoxysilane (FAS)-modified SiO2 hydrophobic layer showed high hydrophobicity and sequential humid-heat stability. Meanwhile, no obvious changes occurred in transmittance spectra after keeping at 85 °C and 85 % relative humidity for 15 days. With the composite film covered, the color rendering index of the display screen decreased only 0.7 %, while the blue light weighted radiance decreased significantly by 37.1 %. Furthermore, cell experiments with composite films demonstrated that human retinal pigment epithelium cells were effectively protected from blue light injury. Overall, the composite films with high stability exhibited desired anti-blue light function.