Catastrophic landslides characterized by runaway slope failures remain difficult to predict. Here, we develop a physics‐based framework to prospectively assess slope failure potential. Our method builds upon the physics of extreme events in natural systems: the extremes so‐called “dragon‐kings” (e.g., slope tertiary creeps prior to failure) exhibit statistically different properties than other smaller‐sized events (e.g., slope secondary creeps). We develop statistical tools to detect the emergence of dragon‐kings during landslide evolution, with the secondary‐to‐tertiary creep transition quantitatively captured. We construct a phase diagram characterizing the detectability of dragon‐kings against “black‐swans” and informing on whether the slope evolves toward a catastrophic or slow landslide. We test our method on synthetic and real data sets, demonstrating how it might have been used to forecast three representative historical landslides. Our method can in principle considerably reduce the number of false alarms and identify with high confidence the presence of true hazards of catastrophic landslides. Plain Language Summary Catastrophic slope failures that pose great threats to life and property remain difficult to predict due to the strong variability of slope behavior. As a result, only a limited number of large rock slope failures have been so far successfully forecasted with associated risks mitigated. Here, we propose a novel predictive framework to prospectively and quantitatively detect slope failure precursors with high confidence. Our research sheds light on one of the most challenging questions in landslide prediction: Would an active landslide slowly move or catastrophically fail in the future? Our method adds a new conceptual framework and operational methodology with a significant potential to support existing early warning systems and hence reduce landslide risks. Key Points Tertiary creeps of catastrophic landslides accommodate dragon‐kings showing statistically different properties than secondary slope creeps A predictive framework is developed to forecast catastrophic landslides by detecting signatures typical of the emergence of dragon‐kings A phase diagram characterizes the detectability of dragon‐kings against black‐swans and discriminates catastrophic and slow landslides