Application discloses a picture encoding method and a terminal. In the method, a terminal divides the plurality of pictures into N groups, wherein the dividing is based on reference information of each of a plurality of pictures. The terminal encodes the N groups of pictures, where the following steps are performed on each one of the N groups of pictures: selecting a first picture from a target group according to a preset rule, and encoding the first picture, where the first picture is a picture first encoded in the target group, and the target group is any one of the N groups of pictures; selecting a reference picture for a second picture from the target group, where the second picture is a picture in the target group other than the first picture; and performing motion estimation on the second picture by using the reference picture, to encode the second picture.