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, Friday 4 September 2026, three films carry the evening with no gaps between them: A Few Good Men (1992), with Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise, opens primetime at 6:15pm, Ready or Not (2019), Samara Weaving’s comedy horror, takes the 9pm slot, and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015) closes the night from 10:50pm.
Film4 Schedule: Friday 4 September 2026 (Full Listings)
Here is the complete Film4 schedule for Friday 4 September 2026, on Freeview 14.
Overnight
| Time | Programme | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 2:15am | Crawlspace | |
| 4am | Teleshopping |
Morning
| Time | Programme | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 11am | Warlock |
Afternoon
| Time | Programme | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 1:30pm | Magnificent Obsession | |
| 3:40pm | The Caine Mutiny |
Early evening
| Time | Programme | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 6:15pm | A Few Good Men |
Primetime
| Time | Programme | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 9pm | Ready or Not |
Late night
| Time | Programme | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 10:50pm | Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation |
What’s on Film4 today
It’s a lean day on Film4 by programme count, nine slots across the full 24 hours once the seven-hour teleshopping block is folded in. Crawlspace (2022), a low-budget thriller with Henry Thomas as a plumber trapped beneath a house with a stash of cash two men are determined to get back, closes out the previous night at 2:15am. Teleshopping takes over at 4am and holds the schedule until 11am.
From there the day belongs to three films from the 1950s, shown straight through. Warlock (1959) opens at 11am: Henry Fonda as a hired gunfighter brought in to defend a town under threat from outlaw raiders, with Anthony Quinn, Richard Widmark and Dorothy Malone. Magnificent Obsession (1954), Douglas Sirk’s melodrama with Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman, follows at 1:30pm. The Caine Mutiny (1954) holds the mid-afternoon from 3:40pm, with Humphrey Bogart as the increasingly paranoid Captain Queeg aboard a US Navy minesweeper. A Few Good Men (1992) opens the evening at 6:15pm.
Film4 tonight — primetime and the evening schedule
Here’s the Film4 primetime line-up for tonight, Friday 4 September 2026.
A Few Good Men — Film4, 6:15pm
A Few Good Men (1992) opens primetime. Tom Cruise plays a lackadaisical Navy lawyer forced to sharpen up when he’s assigned to defend two Marines accused of murder, a case that puts him up against a battle-hardened colonel played by Jack Nicholson. Demi Moore’s naval investigator pushes the defence further than Cruise’s character wants to go. It runs two hours forty-five minutes, straight into the 9pm slot with no break.
Ready or Not — Film4, 9pm
At 9pm, it’s Ready or Not (2019). Samara Weaving marries into a wealthy family with an unusual wedding-night tradition: she has to survive until dawn while her new in-laws hunt her through the house armed with an assortment of antique weapons. The comedy horror runs an hour fifty.
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation — Film4, 10:50pm
The 10:50pm slot belongs to Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015), the fifth film in the Tom Cruise franchise. Ethan Hunt and his team go after a rogue intelligence network known as the Syndicate, working without official backing after the CIA shuts the IMF down. It closes out Film4’s evening.
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?
A Few Good Men (1992), with Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise, opens primetime at 6:15pm. Ready or Not (2019), Samara Weaving’s comedy horror, follows at 9pm, and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015) closes the night from 10:50pm. Full times for the rest of the day, including the run of 1950s films from Warlock (1959) at 11am, 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 tighter evening than some, three films rather than four, but the run holds: A Few Good Men, Ready or Not and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation play straight through from 6:15pm with no gap between any of them, courtroom drama into horror-comedy into action sequel. None is a Film4 Productions title and none is especially obscure, but all three sit well above the channel’s daytime average, and Rogue Nation is one of the stronger entries in a franchise that rarely dips. The daytime is its own small pleasure today, three 1950s films back to back from 11am, Henry Fonda’s Warlock through to Bogart’s Caine Mutiny, exactly the kind of studio-era programming Film4 does better than any of its commercial rivals.
Watch
Related: What’s On TV Tonight | BBC One TV Guide | Freeview Channel Guide | Films on TV This Week
