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

Updated: 20 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, Sunday 20 September 2026, Le Mans ’66 (2019), James Mangold’s motor-racing drama with Matt Damon as Carroll Shelby and Christian Bale as Ken Miles, opens the evening at 6pm, and Tom Hanks’s comedy-drama A Man Called Otto (2022) takes the 9pm slot.

Film4 Schedule: Sunday 20 September 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Film4 schedule for Sunday 20 September 2026, on Freeview 14.

Overnight

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Film4 today

The overnight run opens with Lola (2022), a British-Irish science-fiction drama set during the Second World War, at 12:30am, followed by Michael Mann’s 1981 crime thriller Thief at 2:05am. A long teleshopping block then holds the channel from 3:40am through to 11am.

The 1948 swashbuckler The Black Arrow, based on the Robert Louis Stevenson novel, opens the daytime run, followed by the Tolkien biopic (2019) at 12:45pm. The 1968 musical Oliver! then runs a full three hours from 3pm, carrying the schedule into tonight’s line-up from 6pm.

Film4 tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Film4 primetime line-up for tonight, Sunday 20 September 2026.

Le Mans ’66 — Film4, 6pm

James Mangold’s 2019 motor-racing drama, with Matt Damon as Carroll Shelby and Christian Bale as driver Ken Miles, follows Ford’s attempt to beat Ferrari at the 1966 Le Mans 24 Hours. Released in the US as Ford v Ferrari.

A Man Called Otto — Film4, 9pm

Tom Hanks plays a grieving, curmudgeonly widower in this 2022 comedy-drama, an American remake of the Swedish novel and film A Man Called Ove.

The Pope’s Exorcist — Film4, 11:25pm

Russell Crowe stars as real-life Vatican exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth in this 2023 supernatural horror, investigating a young boy’s possession at an abandoned abbey in Spain.

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.

Film4 is the least repetitive channel on Freeview by a wide margin. When we logged 48 days of schedules across all 32 main channels, only 36.3 per cent of Film4’s slots were a title it had already shown, against 87.9 per cent across Freeview as a whole — the difference being that films are scheduled once or twice rather than stripped across the week. The full comparison is in our study of repeats on UK television.

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?

Le Mans ’66 (2019) opens the evening at 6pm, and A Man Called Otto (2022) takes the 9pm slot. The Pope’s Exorcist (2023) closes out the night from 11:25pm. Full times for the rest of the day, including The Black Arrow at 11am and the run of afternoon films, 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 stronger two-film night than usual. Le Mans ’66 at 6pm is Mangold working a well-worn genre — men, engines, corporate politics — but Bale and Damon carry it further than the formula alone would manage. A Man Called Otto at 9pm is the warmer choice, and Hanks plays against type well enough that the film’s more sentimental turns mostly land. The Pope’s Exorcist closing out from 11:25pm is standard studio horror, competent rather than memorable, though Crowe’s performance is more committed than the material strictly needs. Daytime runs a lighter mix than usual: a 1948 swashbuckler, a straightforward biopic in Tolkien, and Oliver! taking the whole mid-afternoon in one go rather than the usual rotation of shorter titles.

Watch

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