ABSTRACT Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is widely applied in geohazard monitoring with its high resolution and feasibility features, where UAV videos can record the whole landslide failure process. Previous studies can only provide the qualitative depiction of the landslide failure process, rather than the quantitative motion process, which makes it difficult to analyse the landslide dynamic characteristics and failure mode. In this letter, we take UAV video of Pusa landslide, China obtained on 28 August 2017 to retrieve the landslide motion process by using the dense optical flow method. Firstly, the landslide boundary can be clearly depicted by the cumulative landslide motion time series maps. Secondly, the maximum cumulative motion distance of the Pusa landslide was located in the middle of the slope body, with the maximum distance as 79 m, while the maximum instantaneous motion rate was around 42 m/s in the middle and lower part of the slope body. Finally, the failure mode of Pusa landslide can be characterized as ‘fissure zone in the middle, fissure extension to the top, rock bulges outward in the middle and landslide failure to high-speed runout debris flow’.