The invention provides a plasma processing apparatus and a dry etching method for etching a multilayered film structure having steps with high accuracy. The plasma processing apparatus comprises a vacuum reactor, a lower electrode placed within a processing chamber of the vacuum reactor and having a wafer to be etched mounted on the upper surface thereof, bias supplying units and for supplying high frequency power for forming a bias potential to the lower electrode, a gas supply means for feeding reactive gas into the processing chamber, an electric field supplying means through for supplying a magnetic field for generating plasma in the processing chamber, and a control unit for controlling the distribution of ion energy in the plasma being incident on the wafer via the high frequency power.