A novel hydrophilic cellulose ester with a high intrinsic water permeability and a water partition coefficient was discovered to construct membrane supports for flat-sheet thin film composite (TFC) forward osmosis (FO) membranes for water reuse and seawater desalination with high performance. The performance of TFC-FO membranes prepared from the hydrophilic cellulose ester containing a high degree of OH and a moderate degree of Pr substitutions clearly surpasses those prepared from cellulose esters and other polymers with moderate hydrophilicity. Post-treatments of TFC-FO membranes using sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and glycerol followed by heat treatment further enhance the water flux without compromising the selectivity. Positron annihilation lifetime analyses have confirmed that the SDS/glycerol post-treatment increases the free volume size and fractional free volume of the polyamide selective layer. The newly developed post-treated TFC-FO membranes exhibit a remarkably high water flux up to 90 LMH when the selective layer is oriented towards the draw solution (i.e., PRO mode) using 1M NaCl as the draw solution and DI water as the feed. For seawater desalination, the membranes display a high water flux up to 35 LMH using a 2M NaCl draw solution. These water fluxes exceeded the water fluxes achieved by other types of FO membranes reported in literatures.