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, Monday 17 August 2026, Fisherman’s Friends: One and All opens primetime at 6:50pm, Brassed Off follows at 9pm and Glass closes the night from 11:10pm.

Film4 Schedule: Monday 17 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Film4 schedule for Monday 17 August 2026, on Freeview 14.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Film4 today

Fremont, Babak Jalali’s quietly funny 2023 drama following an Afghan translator who ends up writing fortune-cookie messages in California, opens the small hours at 2am. Teleshopping fills most of the gap after that, broken only by a short LumoTV: Small World slot at 8am, before the day’s films properly resume at 11am.

The Son of Robin Hood, a 1958 swashbuckler that hands the legend’s bow to his daughter in disguise, opens the daytime schedule at 11am. The Comancheros follows at 12:40pm, John Wayne’s Texas Ranger reluctantly teaming up with the man he’s meant to be arresting to break a gun-running ring. Man in the Saddle airs at 2:50pm, Randolph Scott’s rancher fending off a wealthier neighbour determined to force him off his own land. Charade, Stanley Donen’s glossy 1963 thriller pairing Cary Grant with Audrey Hepburn as a widow chasing her murdered husband’s stolen gold, closes the afternoon at 4:35pm before Fisherman’s Friends: One and All opens the evening at 6:50pm.

Film4 tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Film4 primetime line-up for tonight, Monday 17 August 2026.

Fisherman’s Friends: One and All (2022) — Film4, 6:50pm

Fisherman’s Friends: One and All picks up the real-life Cornish shanty singers a few years on from the first film’s surprise chart run, with James Purefoy back as the group’s reluctant frontman. The record label wants him stepping into the part his late father built, and it’s the band’s easy camaraderie rather than the plot that carries the film. A softer, more reflective sequel than the original.

Brassed Off (1996) — Film4, 9pm

Brassed Off follows a Yorkshire colliery band trying to hold together after the pit itself shuts, with Pete Postlethwaite conducting a cast built around Ewan McGregor and Tara Fitzgerald. Mark Herman shot it with the real Grimethorpe Colliery Band supplying the music, and the film turns a story about redundancy into something closer to a lament. Three decades on, it still outlasts most of the industrial-decline dramas that followed it.

Glass (2019) — Film4, 11:10pm

Glass closes M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable trilogy, locking Bruce Willis, James McAvoy and Samuel L. Jackson inside a psychiatric unit built to convince all three that their abilities aren’t real. McAvoy is still doing the heavy lifting, cycling through the Beast’s many personalities. It’s a stranger, more subdued film than the trailers suggested, closer to a chamber piece than a superhero showdown.

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 (2022) opens primetime at 6:50pm, with James Purefoy leading the real Cornish shanty group’s fictional sequel. Brassed Off (1996), Mark Herman’s Yorkshire brass-band drama starring Pete Postlethwaite and Ewan McGregor, takes the 9pm slot. Glass (2019), M. Night Shyamalan’s close to the Unbreakable trilogy with Bruce Willis, James McAvoy and Samuel L. Jackson, closes the night from 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’s line-up leans on nostalgia rather than any single big premiere: a sequel trading on its predecessor’s goodwill, a well-loved account of industrial decline, and the moody close to a superhero trilogy. Brassed Off is the strongest of the three, still making its case for a community worth saving decades after the mines it describes actually closed. Fisherman’s Friends: One and All coasts pleasantly without quite matching the original. Glass rewards viewers who stuck with Shyamalan’s trilogy from the start; anyone arriving cold at 11:10pm will find it an odd place to jump in.

Watch

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