Film4 TV Guide: Listings, Schedule & What’s On Film4 Tonight

Updated: 21 July 2026

Film4 is the UK’s free-to-air film channel, found on Freeview 14, Sky 313, Virgin Media 428 and Freesat 300. It dropped its subscription fee on 23 July 2006 and has run without one since, funded by advertising instead. Tonight, Tuesday 21 July 2026, the evening opens with Chris Foggin’s Fisherman’s Friends at 6:50pm before Jennifer Lawrence’s No Hard Feelings takes the 9pm slot. Channel numbers and streaming details are further down.

Film4 Schedule: Tuesday 21 July 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Film4 schedule for Tuesday 21 July 2026, on Freeview 14.

What’s on Film4 today

Tuesday’s daytime schedule on Film4 sticks largely to the 1950s. The Perfect Catch opens at 11am, the Farrelly brothers’ 2005 romantic comedy starring Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon as a Red Sox obsessive who can’t put his baseball season above his girlfriend. The Black Shield of Falworth follows at 1:10pm, a 1954 medieval swashbuckler with Tony Curtis and real-life wife Janet Leigh. The Yellow Mountain takes the 3:10pm slot, a 1954 Western with Lex Barker chasing a gold claim, before the afternoon closes with Anastasia at 4:45pm, the 1956 drama that won Ingrid Bergman her second Oscar as a woman who may or may not be Russia’s lost grand duchess, opposite Yul Brynner.

Film4 Tonight — Primetime and the Evening Schedule

Here’s the Film4 primetime line-up for tonight, Tuesday 21 July 2026.

Fisherman’s Friends — Film4, 6:50pm

Chris Foggin’s 2019 comedy-drama opens the evening, built on the genuinely odd true story of a group of Cornish fishermen whose sea shanty singing landed them a major record deal. James Purefoy and Daniel Mays lead as the singers, with Daniel Mays’ character talking a cynical London music executive, played by Purefoy, into managing the group. It’s a gentle, feel-good watch with Port Isaac doing a lot of the scenery work.

No Hard Feelings — Film4, 9pm

Tonight’s headline slot goes to Gene Stupnitsky’s 2023 comedy, in which Jennifer Lawrence plays a broke Uber driver hired by anxious parents, Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti, to draw their sheltered 19-year-old son out of his shell before he leaves for college. Lawrence throws herself at the physical comedy without much restraint, and the film pushes its raunchier scenes hard while keeping enough warmth underneath that it doesn’t curdle. It’s the newest title on tonight’s schedule by some distance, and the one worth building the evening around.

The Black Phone — Film4, 11:05pm

Scott Derrickson’s 2021 horror, adapted from a short story by Stephen King’s son Joe Hill, casts Ethan Hawke against type as a masked child abductor known only as The Grabber. Mason Thames plays the boy locked in his basement, who starts receiving calls from the killer’s earlier victims on a phone that isn’t even plugged in. It’s unsettling rather than gory, and a solid pick for anyone still up past 11.

What kind of films are on Film4?

Hollywood and recent theatrical releases

A good chunk of the Film4 schedule is mainstream Hollywood: films that played UK multiplexes and reached television a couple of years later. The bigger, more recent titles go in the 9pm and 6.30pm slots, where the audience is widest.

British cinema and Film4 Productions

Film4 Productions, the channel’s film-funding arm, has backed British cinema since 1982, originally trading as Channel Four Films. Its co-productions over four decades run from Four Weddings and a Funeral and Trainspotting through to This Is England, 12 Years a Slave and Poor Things. When the channel broadcasts one of its own titles, it’s airing something it helped pay to exist rather than something it bought in, which is the one thing no other film channel on British free television can say.

World cinema, independent and cult film

Film4 programmes more foreign-language and subtitled film than any other British free-to-air channel. French drama, Scandinavian noir, South Korean thrillers, restored European classics, most of it after 11pm. It also runs cult American independents and titles that never got a wide UK theatrical release. Stay up past midnight often enough and you’ll catch things most viewers only find on the specialist streaming services they’re paying a tenner a month for.

How to watch Film4

Channel numbers

Here’s where to find Film4 across the main UK television platforms:

Film4 is free on all of the above platforms, with no subscription required. Virgin Media and Freesat channel numbers may vary slightly depending on your box and region, so your on-screen guide is the definitive source if these don’t match.

Streaming online

Film4 streams live and free at channel4.com/now/f4 and via the Channel 4 app on smart TVs, iOS, Android, and Amazon Fire TV. You’ll need a free Channel 4 account, which costs nothing to set up. Many films that have aired also turn up on demand in the Film4 collection, though licensing means not everything broadcast makes it there and availability windows vary by title.

Film4 +1 and catching a film you missed

Film4 +1 runs the same schedule an hour behind, on Freeview 47 and Sky 314. Sit down at 10.15pm with the 9pm premiere already 75 minutes in, and +1 lets you start near the beginning instead of giving up on it.

If you miss a film completely and it never appears on demand, wait for the repeat. Film4 reruns titles fairly regularly, often in themed seasons or when a director or actor is back in the news. Searching a week or two ahead in your on-screen guide usually turns one up.

Frequently asked questions

What’s on Film4 tonight?

Tonight, Tuesday 21 July 2026, Film4’s evening runs from 6:50pm with Fisherman’s Friends, before No Hard Feelings takes the 9pm slot and The Black Phone closes the night at 11:05pm. Check the schedule table above for the full day’s listings.

What time do films start on Film4?

Typically around 11am, 2pm, 4pm, 6.30pm, 9pm, and 11pm to midnight. Running lengths shift the exact times day to day, so your on-screen guide has the most accurate information.

Is Film4 free to watch?

Yes, free to air since it left subscription in July 2006. There are ad breaks during films, but no fee on Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media, or Freesat.

Can I watch Film4 online for free?

Yes. It streams live at channel4.com and through the Channel 4 app; you’ll need a free Channel 4 account. Many titles also appear on demand afterwards, though not all of them.

Verdict

I rate Film4. The 9pm slot and the after-11pm stretch are where it keeps me coming back: recent releases, its own Productions titles, and world cinema you’d otherwise be paying a streaming subscription for. The rest of the schedule is reruns of the same forty-odd Hollywood titles, and the ad breaks mid-film test patience some nights. Still, two or three hours of decent television, free, every evening.

Tonight’s lineup swings between three quite different moods. Fisherman’s Friends at 6:50pm is gentle, feel-good stuff built on a true story too strange to invent. No Hard Feelings at 9pm is the one to build your evening around, with Jennifer Lawrence carrying a script funnier than its premise deserves. The Black Phone closes things out just after 11pm for anyone after something properly unsettling before bed.

Watch

Related: What’s On TV Tonight | BBC One TV Guide | Freeview Channel Guide