The present invention provides software branch prediction filtering for a microprocessor. In one embodiment, a method for a software branch prediction filtering for a microprocessor includes determining whether a branch is "easy" to predict, and predicting the branch using software branch prediction if the branch is easy to predict. Otherwise (i.e., the branch is "hard" to predict), the branch is predicted using hardware branch prediction. Accordingly, more accurate but space-limited hardware branch prediction resources are conserved for hard-to-predict branches.