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

Published: 14 September 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, Tuesday 15 September 2026, is really three features and a short extra: the action thriller Gemini Man opens the evening at 6:35pm, a brief Theory of Everything interview special sits ahead of the romantic fantasy The Greatest Hits at 9pm, and the cycle-courier thriller Premium Rush closes the night from 10:55pm.

Film4 Schedule: Tuesday 15 September 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Film4 schedule for Tuesday 15 September 2026, on Freeview 14.

Overnight

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Film4 today

The overnight run opens with the musical drama Les Misérables at 1:50am, before a long teleshopping block takes the channel from just before 4am through to 11am.

Four classic films then carry the rest of the day: the Second World War drama Anzio from 11am, the swashbuckling adventure The Black Arrow from 1:20pm, the western Arizona Raiders from mid-afternoon, and the wartime adventure Destination Gobi running into the early evening ahead of tonight’s line-up from 6:35pm.

Film4 tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Film4 primetime line-up for tonight, Tuesday 15 September 2026.

Gemini Man — Film4, 6:35pm

Will Smith plays both an ageing assassin and the younger clone sent to kill him, Ang Lee’s high-frame-rate action drama built almost entirely around that one gimmick. It works better as a technical exercise than a story.

The Theory of Everything: Interview Special — Film4, 8:50pm

Not the film itself — a 10-minute piece with Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones and director James Marsh looking back on the Stephen and Jane Hawking drama. Anyone expecting the full biopic in this slot will be disappointed; it’s a bridge into the next film.

The Greatest Hits — Film4, 9pm

Lucy Boynton plays a record producer transported back in time whenever a song from a four-year relationship plays, a high-concept romance that leans on its soundtrack as much as its plot.

Premium Rush — Film4, 10:55pm

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a New York bike courier who won’t hand over a package, chased across the city by Michael Shannon’s dirty cop. Lean, fast, and about as long as it needs to be.

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?

Gemini Man opens the evening at 6:35pm, a short Theory of Everything interview special airs at 8:50pm, The Greatest Hits follows at 9pm, and Premium Rush closes the night from 10:55pm. Full times for the rest of the day, including Anzio at 11am and Arizona Raiders in the mid-afternoon, 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 slightly unusual shape: three real films around a ten-minute interview piece that isn’t one. Gemini Man at 6:35pm is the technical curiosity of the night, more interesting for its production than its script. The genuine premiere-slot pull is The Greatest Hits at 9pm, though the schedule oddly precedes it with a Theory of Everything interview special that has nothing to do with either film either side of it — worth knowing about in advance so it doesn’t read as an error. Premium Rush closes out from 10:55pm, efficient and unpretentious. Daytime keeps to the channel’s usual rotation of war pictures, adventure and westerns, none of them built to be a centrepiece on their own.

Watch

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