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, Thursday 20 August 2026, the channel keeps it simple: Cleopatra fills the whole of early evening from 4:15pm to 9pm, then Heat takes over for the night.

Film4 Schedule: Thursday 20 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Film4 schedule for Thursday 20 August 2026, on Freeview 14.

Overnight

Morning

Afternoon

Primetime

What’s on Film4 today

It’s a quiet day on Film4, with just eight programmes covering the full 24 hours. Two Teleshopping blocks run back to back overnight, from 2:45am to 11am, before the westerns take over.

Battle at Apache Pass, a 1952 Cochise-and-Geronimo picture, opens the day’s films at 11am. Ride Lonesome follows at 12:45pm, Randolph Scott chasing an old grudge as a bounty hunter, and Siege of the Saxons brings a dose of Dark Ages swordplay at 2:20pm with Merlin drafted in to sort out a stolen throne. A ten-minute American Gangster Special at 4:05pm, with Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe and director Ridley Scott looking back on the 2007 film, is the only thing that breaks up the afternoon before Cleopatra takes over the schedule at 4:15pm and doesn’t let go until 9pm.

Film4 tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Film4 primetime line-up for tonight, Thursday 20 August 2026. Two films, nothing else, and both worth clearing the evening for.

Cleopatra — Film4, 4:15pm

Film4’s entire early evening belongs to a single picture. Elizabeth Taylor’s 1963 epic runs from 4:15pm right through to 9pm, tracking the Egyptian queen’s political manoeuvring with Rex Harrison’s Julius Caesar and, later, Richard Burton’s Mark Antony. It’s the kind of sprawling, star-driven production that television barely makes room for any more, and Film4 giving it the best part of five hours says something about how the channel treats its classics.

Heat — Film4, 9pm

Michael Mann’s 1995 heist thriller closes out the night. Al Pacino’s detective and Robert De Niro’s professional thief circle each other across Los Angeles, building to the diner scene that put the two actors on screen together for the first time. Contains violence and strong language.

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?

Just two films tonight. Cleopatra (1963), with Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton, runs from 4:15pm to 9pm. Heat (1995), Michael Mann’s crime thriller starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, follows straight after. Full times for the rest of the day 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 is an unusually light day for Film4 — eight programmes in total, and only two of them films — but both are worth the time. Cleopatra getting nearly five hours of daytime real estate is a rare sight on free-to-air television, and it’s a fair use of the slot given the scale of the production. Heat at 9pm is the stronger pick of the two on craft alone: a patient, well-cast crime thriller that has held up better than most of its 1990s peers, and reason enough to stay in on a Thursday.

Watch

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