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

Published: 30 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, Monday 31 August 2026, James Cameron’s Titanic anchors the evening from 6pm, running straight into Ethan Coen’s Drive-Away Dolls at 9:45pm and then Todd Haynes’ Carol from 11:30pm — three films, no breaks, running past 1am.

Film4 Schedule: Monday 31 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Film4 schedule for Monday 31 August 2026, on Freeview 14.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Film4 today

It’s another light day on Film4 by programme count, eight slots across the full 24 hours once the two teleshopping breaks are folded in. Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners, starring Michael J Fox as a fraudulent ghost hunter, closes out the previous night at 1:35am and runs to 3:45am, when the first teleshopping block takes over until 8am.

LumoTV: Small World fills a half-hour at 8am, then it’s teleshopping again until 11am, when Harvey opens the day’s proper films — James Stewart’s 1950 comedy about a man and his invisible six-foot rabbit. Midway, Roland Emmerich’s 2019 account of the pivotal WWII naval battle, follows at 1:10pm, and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, with Whoopi Goldberg back as Deloris Van Cartier taking on an unruly school choir, holds the afternoon from 3:50pm until Titanic opens the evening at 6pm.

Film4 tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Film4 line-up for tonight, Monday 31 August 2026: three films, no ad-break scheduling gaps between them, running from 6pm to gone 1am.

Titanic — Film4, 6pm

James Cameron’s Titanic opens the evening, all three hours and forty-five minutes of it. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet play Jack and Rose, the penniless artist and the trapped society heiress who meet aboard the doomed liner in April 1912. It won eleven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, and held the record for the highest-grossing film ever made for over a decade. Anyone who has somehow avoided it until now has a full day’s warning before Film4 moves on to Drive-Away Dolls.

Drive-Away Dolls — Film4, 9:45pm

Ethan Coen directs alone here, his first feature without brother Joel, and it shows in the tone. Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan play two friends whose road trip from Philadelphia to Tallahassee goes wrong when the car they’ve hired turns out to be carrying something a set of very determined criminals want back. Beanie Feldstein and Pedro Pascal round out a cast that leans into the film’s pulpy, screwball energy — a 2024 release, and a genuinely different register from the film either side of it.

Carol — Film4, 11:30pm

Todd Haynes’ Carol closes the night, adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel The Price of Salt. Cate Blanchett plays the title character, an unhappily married woman in 1950s New York; Rooney Mara is Therese, the shop assistant she falls for. Both actors picked up Oscar nominations for it, and the film’s Christmas-set, 16mm cinematography is one of the most talked-about things about it since release. It runs past 1:30am, so watching it start to finish means a late one.

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?

Titanic (1997), James Cameron’s Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet epic, holds the 6pm slot for three hours and forty-five minutes. Drive-Away Dolls (2024), Ethan Coen’s road-trip comedy with Margaret Qualley, follows at 9:45pm, and Carol (2015), Todd Haynes’ Patricia Highsmith adaptation with Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, closes the night from 11:30pm. Full times for the rest of the day, including Harvey (1950) and Midway (2019) in the daytime, 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 a genuine one-off rather than the usual rotation: three films, no gaps, running from 6pm straight through to gone 1am. Titanic needs no introduction and gets none here, but Drive-Away Dolls is the one worth setting a reminder for if you haven’t caught it — Qualley and Viswanathan carry a script that’s funnier and looser than the marketing suggested. Carol closing the night is Film4 doing what it does best: a serious, well-regarded drama in a slot most channels would waste on a rerun.

Watch

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