The pulvinar is a higher-order thalamic nucleus in the human visual system whose role is poorly understood. Anatomical circuit mapping and high-density electrophysiology of the mouse homologue of this region (lateral posterior thalamic nucleus (LP)) revealed three functionally distinct subregions. Silencing LP inputs from the superior colliculus (SC) or primary visual cortex (V1) revealed that V1 input drives visual responses in anterior LP, whereas SC input drives visual responses to object motion in posterior LP, with motion-related information primarily routed to visual areas in the ventral stream, rather than those in the dorsal stream (as in primates).