disclosed is a process for molding plastic optical articles with a hard coated film , comprising steps of coating one side of an optical film with a hard coating , pre - curing the hard coating to a tack free state while still maintaining the coating flexibility , making an insert from the coated film for the desired optical article , molding the plastic resin onto the insert through insert injection molding , and post - curing the molded article . the utilization of the pre - curing and post - curing steps have been found to eliminate hard coating cracks during the insert making and the molding step , while providing a hard coating with desired properties . such an optical article possesses a hard coating integrated on its surface , thus , eliminating the need to further coat the optical article .