A method and apparatus for denoising digital images or videos, which is an extension of the spatial varying filter (SVF) by using a past filtered pixel, instead of the current pixel itself as the input for producing an output for the current pixel. Based on this concept, a number of denoising filters are provided, including Auto-regressive Spatial Varying Filter (ARSVF), Modified Auto-regressive Spatial Varying Filter (MARSVF), Auto-Regressive Spatiotemporal Varying Filter (ARSTVF) which is an extension of Spatiotemporal Varying Filter (STVF), Auto-regressive Motion Compensated Spatiotemporal Varying Filter (ARMCSTVF) which is extension of Motion Compensated Spatiotemporal Varying Filter (MCSTVF), and Selective Auto-regressive Motion Compensated Spatiotemporal Varying Filter (SARMCSTVF).