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 18 August 2026, Horizon Line opens primetime at 7:15pm, 65 follows at 9pm and The Woman King closes the night from 10:50pm.
Film4 Schedule: Tuesday 18 August 2026 (Full Listings)
Here is the complete Film4 schedule for Tuesday 18 August 2026, on Freeview 14.
Overnight
| Time | Programme | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 1:45am | Cuban Fury | |
| 3:40am | Teleshopping |
Morning
| Time | Programme | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 11am | The Kid Who Would Be King |
Afternoon
| Time | Programme | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 1:20pm | The Woodlanders | |
| 3:15pm | Shenandoah |
Early evening
| Time | Programme | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 5:20pm | The Lost World |
Primetime
| Time | Programme | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 7:15pm | Horizon Line | |
| 9pm | 65 |
Late night
| Time | Programme | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 10:50pm | The Woman King |
What’s on Film4 today
Cuban Fury, Nick Frost’s 2014 comeback-salsa comedy opposite Rashida Jones and Chris O’Dowd, closes out the overnight run at 1:45am. Teleshopping fills the gap that follows, running through to mid-morning.
The Kid Who Would Be King, a 2019 family adventure in which a schoolboy who finds Excalibur has to rally his classmates against the sorceress Morgana, opens the daytime schedule at 11am. The Woodlanders follows at 1:20pm, Thomas Hardy’s tale of a woman promised by her father to a fashionable doctor while she still loves the man who actually suits her. Shenandoah airs at 3:15pm, James Stewart’s Virginia farmer trying to keep his family clear of the Civil War until his youngest son is taken prisoner. The Lost World, the 1960 Conan Doyle adaptation sending a zoology professor’s expedition up an Amazon plateau where dinosaurs have survived, closes the afternoon at 5:20pm before Horizon Line opens the evening at 7:15pm.
Film4 tonight — primetime and the evening schedule
Here’s the Film4 primetime line-up for tonight, Tuesday 18 August 2026.
Horizon Line — Film4, 7:15pm
Horizon Line (2020) opens the evening. Alexander Dreymon and Allison Williams play a former couple whose short hop to a friend’s island wedding turns into a fight to keep a single-engine plane in the air after the pilot dies mid-flight. It’s a lean, functional survival thriller rather than a great one, but it earns the 7:15pm slot.
65 — Film4, 9pm
Adam Driver leads 65 (2023) at 9pm, playing an astronaut whose crash-landing strands him and a young survivor on prehistoric Earth, sixty-five million years before anyone was meant to be there. The premise is a good hook and the film mostly just chases it through one set-piece after another.
The Woman King — Film4, 10:50pm
The night’s strongest film closes it out. The Woman King (2022), Gina Prince-Bythewood’s account of the Agojie, the all-female regiment that defended the West African kingdom of Dahomey, stars Viola Davis as General Nanisca training a new recruit for a war against slave traders. Davis carries it, and the fight choreography holds up even at 10:50pm on a weeknight.
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:
| Platform | Channel |
|---|---|
| Freeview | 14 |
| Sky (Q, Stream, Glass) | 313 |
| Sky HD | 855 |
| Film4 +1 on Freeview | 47 |
| Film4 +1 on Sky | 314 |
| Virgin Media | 428 |
| Freesat | 300 |
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?
Horizon Line (2020) opens primetime at 7:15pm, with Alexander Dreymon and Allison Williams trying to land a plane after its pilot dies mid-flight. 65 (2023), Adam Driver’s prehistoric survival thriller, takes the 9pm slot. The Woman King (2022), Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Dahomey warrior epic starring Viola Davis, closes the night from 10:50pm. 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 is built around one genuine standout. The Woman King is the reason to stay up past 10:50pm: Viola Davis at her most commanding, and a story British schedules rarely make room for. Horizon Line and 65 are the sort of mid-budget thrillers Film4 uses to fill the earlier slots, competent enough to hold an evening together without doing anything especially memorable. Neither embarrasses itself, but neither would top a best-of list either.
Watch
Related: What’s On TV Tonight | BBC One TV Guide | Freeview Channel Guide | Films on TV This Week
