A pupil detection device and a pupil detection method, which are capable of stably detecting the pupil by actively using information of cornea-reflected image even when most of the pupil is hidden by the cornea-reflected image. In pupil detection device (100), peripheral state evaluating section (105) sets a plurality of line segments having a reference point of a cornea-reflected image as one end and having a predetermined length, and calculates a luminance evaluation value based on luminance of each pixel in each line segment and reference luminance. Pupil center straight line calculation section (106) specifies a pupil center straight line passing through a center of a pupil image from among a plurality of line segments based on a luminance evaluation value. Pupil search section (107) detects a pupil image based on a luminance state around the pupil center straight line.