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.

Film4 Schedule: Thursday 13 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Film4 schedule for Thursday 13 August 2026, on Freeview 14.

Overnight

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Film4 today

Holy Cow opens the small hours at 1:50am, a 2024 French coming-of-age drama in which a teenager left responsible for his younger sister tries making a living from cheese production. Teleshopping then fills the long overnight stretch through to 11am.

Journey to the Center of the Earth takes over at 11am, the 1959 fantasy adventure with James Mason leading an expedition that runs into prehistoric creatures and a rival explorer far below the surface. Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon follows at 1:40pm, Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce’s 1942 outing sending the detective after a Nazi plot to steal a new invention. Film4 Interview Programmes: Talking Film, a short strand of cast and director reflections, gets a ten-minute slot at 3pm before The True Story of Jesse James at 3:10pm, Robert Wagner playing the outlaw across the final years of his life in Nicholas Ray’s 1957 western. Tolkien then opens the evening at 5pm.

Film4 tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Film4 primetime line-up for tonight, Thursday 13 August 2026.

Tolkien — Film4, 5pm

Tolkien (2019) opens the evening with Nicholas Hoult as the future author during his Oxford years, tracking the friendships and early losses that fed into the mythology behind The Lord of the Rings. Lily Collins plays Edith Bratt, the woman he married. It’s a quieter, character-led start to the night rather than a big theatrical draw.

Moon — Film4, 7:10pm

Moon (2009) follows at 7:10pm. Sam Rockwell carries almost the entire film alone, playing an engineer nearing the end of a three-year lunar mining contract whose grip on reality starts slipping as his replacement’s arrival approaches. Duncan Jones directed on a small budget, and the film’s reputation has only grown since its release.

The Woman King — Film4, 9pm

At 9pm it’s The Woman King (2022), with Viola Davis leading the Agojie, the all-female military unit that defended the West African kingdom of Dahomey through the 19th century, against rival kingdoms and European slave traders. It’s the biggest, most physically demanding film of the four tonight.

Anna — Film4, 11:40pm

The night closes at 11:40pm with Anna (2019), Luc Besson’s assassin thriller. Sasha Luss plays a Moscow market-stall worker pulled into modelling and, behind that cover, into contract killing for Russian intelligence — a past that follows her to Paris and refuses to let go.

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?

Tolkien, the 2019 biographical drama with Nicholas Hoult, opens at 5pm; Moon, Sam Rockwell’s 2009 sci-fi thriller, follows at 7:10pm; The Woman King, the 2022 historical action drama with Viola Davis, takes the 9pm slot; and Anna, Luc Besson’s 2019 assassin 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’s spread runs from quiet to spectacle. Tolkien is the gentlest option, more about friendship and Oxford common rooms than incident. The Woman King is the one worth building your evening around, a proper piece of large-scale historical action with Viola Davis on commanding form. Moon rewards anyone who stays in for it: small, strange and largely a one-man performance. Anna is the late-night option, glossier and less demanding than the rest.

Watch

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