High-quality diamond films have attracted extensive attentions due to their excellent optical and electrical properties. However, several issues, such as random orientation, stress accumulation, and slow growth rate, severely limit its applications. In this paper, high-quality polycrystalline diamond films with highly ordered (100) orientation were prepared by microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition. The effects of growth parameters on the microstructure, quality and residual stress of diamond films were investigated. Experimental results indicate that relatively high temperature at low methane concentration will promote the formation of (100) oriented grains with a low compressive stress. Optimized growth parameters, a methane concentration of 2% along with a pressure of 250 Torr and temperature at 1050 ℃, were used to acquire high growth rate of 7.9 μm/h and narrow full width at half maximum of Raman peak of 5.5 cm− 1 revealing a high crystal quality. It demonstrates a promising method for rapid growth of high-quality polycrystalline diamond films with (100) orientation, which is vital for improving the diamond related applications at low cost.