In this paper, we proposed a nonlinear hierarchical mtion estimation method. Generally, the conventional hierarchical motion estimation methods have been proposed for fast convergence and detection of large motions. But they have a common drawback that large error in motion estimation is propapated across motion discontinuities. This artifiact is due to the constriaint of motion continuity and the linear interpolation of motion vectors between hierarchical levels. In this paper, we propose an effective hierarchical motion estimation mechod that is robust to motion discontinuities. The proposed algorithm is based on the decomposition of the functional domain for optimizing the intra-level motion estimation functional. Also, we propose an inter-level nonlinear motion estimation equation rather than using the conventional linearprojection scheme of motion field. computer simulations with several test sequences show tht the proposed algorithm performs better than several conventional methods.