Polycrystalline and epitaxial [Pb(MgNb)O ]-PbTiO] (PMN-PT) thin films were prepared by pulsed laser deposition on BaPbO (BPO) and La SrMnO (LSMO) oxide electrodes. In comparison, the epitaxial films show higher dielectric constant and the polycrystalline films exhibit lower dielectric loss and smaller leakage current. It is also found that the use of lead based BPO electrodes helps to raise the dielectric constant of the PMN-PT layer by 30%, and to reduce the dielectric leakage by as much as three orders of magnitude. Our results have clearly demonstrated the superiority of using lead based electrodes for growing lead based dielectrics.