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, Wednesday 5 August 2026, it’s a three-film night: Steel Magnolias, the 1989 Louisiana beauty-parlour tragicomedy with Julia Roberts and Dolly Parton, opens at 6:40pm. Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock’s 1994 action thriller Speed takes the 9pm slot, before Michael Bay’s 2022 thriller Ambulance, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, closes the night at 11:15pm. Sky, Virgin and Freesat numbers, the +1 channel and the streaming details are all further down.

Film4 Schedule: Wednesday 5 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Film4 schedule for Wednesday 5 August 2026, on Freeview 14.

What’s on Film4 today

Wednesday’s overnight hours belong to How to Talk to Girls at Parties at 1:25am, John Cameron Mitchell’s 2017 sci-fi romance with Elle Fanning and Alex Sharp as a teenage punk who falls for a visitor from another world, before Teleshopping fills the small hours from 3:30am through to 11am.

My Spy takes the 11am slot, the 2020 family action comedy in which Dave Bautista’s CIA agent gets outmanoeuvred by a nine-year-old (Chloe Coleman) while he’s meant to be watching her family. Monkey Business follows at 12:55pm, Howard Hawks’ 1952 screwball comedy with Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers as a scientist and his wife both dosed on a rejuvenating formula. Siege at Red River runs from 2:50pm, the 1954 Van Johnson western built around a stolen Gatling gun, and Heaven Knows, Mr Allison closes the afternoon at 4:35pm, the 1957 wartime drama pairing Deborah Kerr’s stranded nun with Robert Mitchum’s marine on a Japanese-held Pacific island.

Film4 tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Film4 primetime line-up for tonight, Wednesday 5 August 2026.

Steel Magnolias — Film4, 6:40pm

Robert Harling’s Louisiana beauty-parlour drama arrives at 6:40pm. It’s a 1989 film but rarely off some free channel’s schedule for long, and it’s easy to see why: Julia Roberts, Dolly Parton, Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis and Daryl Hannah trade barbed dialogue between the perms and blow-dries, and the swing from comedy to grief in the closing stretch still catches new viewers off guard.

Speed — Film4, 9pm

Jan de Bont’s 1994 breakout hit takes the 9pm slot. Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock are stuck on a Los Angeles bus wired to explode if it drops below fifty miles an hour, with Dennis Hopper as the bomber behind it. Three decades on, the stunt work holds up better than most modern equivalents.

Ambulance — Film4, 11:15pm

Michael Bay’s 2022 thriller closes the night. Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II play brothers who commandeer an ambulance after a bank heist goes wrong, with a paramedic in the back trying to keep a wounded officer alive as the LAPD closes in. It’s loud and occasionally daft, shot with the aerial drone work Bay favours these days.

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: Steel Magnolias, the 1989 Julia Roberts and Dolly Parton tragicomedy, at 6:40pm; Speed, the 1994 Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock thriller, at 9pm; and Ambulance, Michael Bay’s 2022 thriller with Jake Gyllenhaal, at 11:15pm. 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 leans older but solid. Steel Magnolias at 6:40pm is comfort viewing with a genuinely moving final stretch. Speed at 9pm is the pick of the night, a thriller that’s aged better than most of its multiplex contemporaries. Ambulance at 11:15pm is the weakest of the three, all noise and drone shots, but Gyllenhaal commits to it fully.

Watch

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