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

Film4 is the UK’s free-to-air film channel, on Freeview 14. It dropped its subscription fee on 23 July 2006 and has run on advertising ever since. Tonight, Tuesday 4 August 2026, it’s a three-film night: the 2023 animated reboot Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem at 6:55pm, Kim Basinger and Dan Aykroyd’s 1988 comedy My Stepmother Is An Alien at 9pm, and Jonathan Glazer’s 2013 sci-fi horror Under the Skin closing out at 11:15pm, with a short interview special ahead of it at 11:10pm. Sky, Virgin and Freesat numbers, the +1 channel and the streaming details are all further down.

Film4 Schedule: Tuesday 4 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Film4 schedule for Tuesday 4 August 2026, on Freeview 14.

What’s on Film4 today

Tuesday’s overnight hours belong to Monster Hunter at 1:05am, Paul WS Anderson’s 2020 game adaptation with Milla Jovovich fighting her way out of a monster-infested parallel world, before Teleshopping fills the small hours from 3:10am through to 11am.

Robot Dreams takes the 11am slot, Pablo Berger’s Oscar-nominated 2023 animation about a lonely dog who builds himself a robot companion in 1980s New York. Drums Along the Mohawk follows at 1:05pm, John Ford’s 1939 frontier drama with Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert as settlers under attack in the Mohawk Valley. The Mark of Zorro runs from 3:10pm, the 1974 swashbuckler with Frank Langella behind the mask, and Rat Race closes the afternoon at 4:45pm, the 2001 ensemble comedy that sends John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson and Whoopi Goldberg racing across America for $2 million.

Film4 tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Film4 primetime line-up for tonight, Tuesday 4 August 2026.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem — Film4, 6:55pm

Jeff Rowe’s 2023 reboot ditches the old rubber-suit look for a scratchy, sketchbook animation style, with Seth Rogen among the producers and Jackie Chan voicing Splinter. It leans harder on the turtles being actual teenagers, awkward and bickering, than any previous version bothered to.

My Stepmother Is An Alien — Film4, 9pm

Dan Aykroyd plays a widowed scientist whose signal from space brings Kim Basinger’s alien to his doorstep, posing as a potential stepmother while she works out how to save her home planet. It’s a broad 1988 comedy that trades on Basinger learning human behaviour from scratch, played mostly for slapstick rather than romance.

Last Night in Soho Interview Special — Film4, 11:10pm

A brief companion piece rather than a film in its own right: director Edgar Wright and co-writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns talk through the time-slip mechanics and period recreation behind Last Night in Soho. Five minutes, then straight into tonight’s late film.

Under the Skin — Film4, 11:15pm

Jonathan Glazer’s 2013 adaptation of Michel Faber’s novel follows Scarlett Johansson’s alien, disguised as a woman, driving the streets of Glasgow and luring men into an unexplained fate. Sparse dialogue, unsettling scoring from Mica Levi, and a lead performance that carries most scenes alone.

What kind of films are on Film4?

Hollywood and recent theatrical releases

A good chunk of the 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. Four Weddings and a Funeral, Trainspotting, This Is England, 12 Years a Slave, Poor Things — four decades of co-productions, and the reason the channel gets more benefit of the doubt than its commercial rivals.

World cinema, independent and cult film

Film4 shows more subtitled film than any other British free-to-air channel, mostly after 11pm, alongside cult American independents and things that never got a proper UK release. That late shift is the best thing about it.

How to watch Film4

Channel numbers

Where to find Film4 on the main UK platforms:

Film4 is free on all of the above, with no subscription required. Virgin Media and Freesat numbers can vary by box and region, so check your on-screen guide 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 takes a couple of minutes to set up. Films that have aired often turn up on demand in the Film4 collection afterwards, but licensing means plenty of them never do, and the ones that make it don’t stay long.

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 gone and +1 lets you start it near the beginning instead of writing the evening off.

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

Frequently asked questions

What’s on Film4 tonight?

Three films tonight: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, the 2023 animated reboot, at 6:55pm; My Stepmother Is An Alien, the 1988 Kim Basinger and Dan Aykroyd comedy, at 9pm; and Under the Skin, the 2013 Scarlett Johansson sci-fi horror, at 11:15pm, preceded by a short interview special at 11:10pm. Full times for the rest of the evening are in the schedule table above.

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, and it has been since it left subscription in July 2006. Expect ad breaks during films, but no fee on any platform.

Can I watch Film4 online for free?

Yes, live at channel4.com or through the Channel 4 app, with a free account.

Verdict

I rate Film4, with reservations. The 9pm slot and the run after 11pm are what keep me coming back: recent releases, the odd Productions title, and foreign-language cinema you’d rarely stumble across on any other free channel. Daytime is mostly the same forty-odd Hollywood titles on rotation, and the ad breaks mid-film wear thin some nights.

Tonight is a decent enough spread by Film4’s usual standards. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem at 6:55pm is the pick for families, with an animation style that actually looks like nothing else on the schedule. My Stepmother Is An Alien at 9pm is dated, broad comedy, carried by Basinger rather than the script. Under the Skin at 11:15pm is the night’s real find: cold, strange, and a world away from the Hollywood films earlier in the evening.

Watch

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