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 12 August 2026, Fisherman’s Friends: One and All opens the evening at 6:50pm, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation takes the 9pm slot and The Rhythm Section closes the night from 11:40pm.

Film4 Schedule: Wednesday 12 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Film4 schedule for Wednesday 12 August 2026, on Freeview 14.

What’s on Film4 today

Plan B opens the small hours at 1:20am, a 2021 comedy following two friends racing across small-town America to track down emergency contraception after a party goes wrong, with Kuhoo Verma and Victoria Moroles leading. Teleshopping then runs the long stretch through to 11am.

Secret Headquarters takes the 11am slot, a 2022 family adventure in which a teenager stumbles on the secret base beneath his house and realises his distant dad is actually a masked superhero, with Owen Wilson as the reluctant hero. Sign of the Pagan follows at 1:05pm, a 1954 historical epic with Jack Palance as Attila the Hun tearing through Europe and Jeff Chandler as the Roman general trying to stop him. The Comancheros runs from 2:55pm, John Wayne’s 1961 western pairing a Texas Ranger with the outlaw he’s arrested to break up a gun-running operation, co-starring Stuart Whitman. They Rode West closes the afternoon at 5:05pm, a 1954 western in which an army doctor, played by Robert Francis, clashes with his rigid commanding officer over treating a Native American tribe struck by malaria.

Film4 tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Film4 primetime line-up for tonight, Wednesday 12 August 2026.

Fisherman’s Friends: One and All — Film4, 6:50pm

Chris Foggin’s 2022 follow-up sends the Cornish shanty group back out on the road, James Purefoy heading a cast trying to build on the surprise success of the first film. Fame brings its own problems here: a label keen to reshape Jim in his late father’s image, and a small fishing town not altogether comfortable with the attention.

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation — Film4, 9pm

Christopher McQuarrie took over directing duties for this fifth outing, released in 2015, with Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt hunting a shadow organisation called the Syndicate while the CIA has shut down the IMF and wants him brought in. Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust is the film’s standout addition, an operative whose loyalties stay murky for most of the running time.

The Rhythm Section — Film4, 11:40pm

Reed Morano directs this 2020 thriller, produced by the team behind the Bond films, with Blake Lively playing a woman who trains as an assassin after learning her family’s death in a plane crash was no accident. Jude Law appears as the disgraced former agent who takes her under his wing.

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?

Fisherman’s Friends: One and All, the 2022 sea-shanty comedy sequel with James Purefoy, opens at 6:50pm; Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, the 2015 Tom Cruise thriller, takes the 9pm slot; and The Rhythm Section, the 2020 Blake Lively revenge thriller, closes the night from 11:40pm. 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 towards action and adventure rather than anything heavier. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation is the pick for most households: a well-drilled, stunt-driven entry in a franchise that rarely lets the quality dip. Fisherman’s Friends: One and All suits anyone after something gentler, a sequel that trades on warmth and a strong sense of place rather than surprise. The Rhythm Section is the late option if a grittier, more downbeat thriller is more your evening.

Watch

Related: What’s On TV Tonight | BBC One TV Guide | Freeview Channel Guide | Films on TV This Week