The present invention provides a moving picture format variable length code (VLC) decoder that decodes at a high speed. The VLC decoder includes an input data memory, which is stored with a pixel data coefficient string in moving picture format, a table reference device, which is stored with table reference data and receives memory data from the input data memory, table storage memory including a reference table, which is stored with parametric data, receives table reference data ARG from the table reference device, and transmits parametric data to the table reference device, and output data memory, which receives reference table data made from a coefficient flag output from the table reference device and the last coefficient flag.