Abstract: In view of the problem that the characteristics of roof breaking and the law of overburden rock movement in hard roof fully mechanized caving face are not clear in actual production, the safety of working face is seriously affected. In this paper, based on the engineering background of 8201 working face in a certain mine, the characteristics of roof breaking and the law of overburden rock movement in fully mechanized top-coal caving face with hard roof are studied and analyzed by theoretical analysis, numerical simulation and field measurement. The results show that the uniaxial compressive strength of lamprophyre is about 45 MPa, the non-joint is 90.99 MPa and the uniaxial tensile strength is 7.3 MPa to 9.4 MPa. In the process of fracture, the stress model of roof is obtained, and the first step distance of basic top is 47.57 m, and the first step distance of 8201 basic roof is about 45 m and the distance of periodic pressure is about 20 m by numerical simulation. The average initial top pressure is 46 m, the interval of periodic pressure is 18.7 m to 20.8 m, and the influence range is 1.7 m to 5.6 m. There is little difference between the results of field measurement and theoretical analysis and the results of numerical simulation.