A high-speed motion retrieval device is provided that certainly unerring motion vector at high speed. The first-stage motion retrieval means 12 retrieves a retrieval range determined by referring to the retrieval result in the previous frame. If a minimum predictive error is smaller than a threshold value, the motion retrieval process is ended at the time the retrieval range has been retrieved. If the minimum predictive error is larger than the threshold value, the second-stage motion retrieval means 13 retrieves the region which has not been retrieved through the first-stage motion retrieval within a predetermined retrieval range, thus obtaining the location with a minimum predictive error. Thus, the retrieval is divided into two steps. Motion vectors can be retrieved with small error detection and at high speed by suitably changing the first-stage retrieval range.
