Film4 TV Guide: Listings, Schedule & What’s On Film4 Tonight

Published: 27 August 2026

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, Friday 28 August 2026, Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion creatures take over Mysterious Island from 4:45pm, holding the schedule through the 6pm hour before Ryan Reynolds comedy Free Guy starts at 6:50pm. Jason Statham thriller The Mechanic takes the 9pm slot, Sexy Beast follows at 10:50pm, and Liam Neeson vehicle Honest Thief closes the night just after midnight.

Film4 Schedule: Friday 28 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Film4 schedule for Friday 28 August 2026, on Freeview 14.

Overnight

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Film4 today

It’s a quiet day on Film4, with ten entries across the full 24 hours once the overnight teleshopping blocks are counted together. Those blocks fill the gap from 4am through to 11am.

Marilyn Monroe western River of No Return opens the daytime films at 11am, with Robert Mitchum’s ex-convict rafting a saloon singer downriver into dangerous country, both of them bound for a reckoning with her scheming husband-to-be. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 follows at 12:50pm, sending its animated inventor and friends back to save the world from food-based creatures of his own making. Jimmy Fallon romantic comedy The Perfect Catch takes the 2:40pm slot, before Ray Harryhausen’s Mysterious Island arrives at 4:45pm and holds the schedule for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening.

Film4 tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Film4 primetime line-up for tonight, Friday 28 August 2026.

Mysterious Island — Film4, 4:45pm

Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion creatures still hold up more than sixty years on, and that’s the real draw of this 1961 Jules Verne adventure. A group of Union prisoners break out of a Confederate camp in a hijacked balloon, get blown wildly off course, and wash up on an island where the wildlife has grown to enormous proportions, kept that way by a Captain Nemo who has his own reasons for staying hidden. It starts well before the evening properly gets going and runs deep into the 6pm hour, so anyone tuning in for Free Guy at its advertised time will find the giant crab still on screen.

Free Guy — Film4, 6:50pm

Ryan Reynolds plays a bank clerk who slowly works out that he’s a background character in an open-world video game, and that the world around him is about to be switched off for good. It’s a comedy built on a decent hook, and it earns the 6:50pm slot on the strength of that premise rather than star power alone.

The Mechanic — Film4, 9pm

Jason Statham’s hitman is sent to kill the man who trained him, then quietly takes the dead man’s son under his wing without telling him why. Donald Sutherland appears early as the mentor on the receiving end of that assignment. It’s Statham on fairly familiar ground, but the 9pm slot suits a film that doesn’t ask much of its audience beyond a straight run of well-staged set pieces.

Sexy Beast — Film4, 10:50pm

Ray Winstone’s retired safecracker is enjoying the Spanish sun when Ben Kingsley’s Don Logan turns up uninvited to drag him back to London for one last job. Kingsley’s performance is the reason this one still gets talked about a quarter of a century on, and Jonathan Glazer’s direction gives it a nastier edge than the average British crime film. Late enough to need commitment, but worth staying up for.

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?

Mysterious Island (1961), the Ray Harryhausen adventure, runs from 4:45pm to 6:50pm, when Free Guy (2021), starring Ryan Reynolds, takes over. The Mechanic (2011), with Jason Statham and Donald Sutherland, follows at 9pm, and Sexy Beast, Jonathan Glazer’s 2000 crime thriller with Ben Kingsley terrorising Ray Winstone’s retired safecracker, takes the 10:50pm slot. Honest Thief (2020), Liam Neeson’s action thriller, closes the night just after midnight. 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’s line-up is a good one for Film4’s standards. Sexy Beast at 10:50pm is the pick if you’re in for the long haul: Ben Kingsley’s performance alone justifies staying up, and Jonathan Glazer’s direction has aged well. The Mechanic at 9pm is the easier, less demanding option for anyone who just wants Statham doing what Statham does, and Free Guy at 6:50pm suits the whole household if you’re settling in early. Mysterious Island, running from 4:45pm and well into the evening, is worth catching from the start if you’re home in time — Harryhausen’s creature work is the reason it still gets shown.

Watch

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