GREAT! Movies TV Guide: Listings, Schedule & What’s On GREAT! Movies Tonight

GREAT! Movies is a free-to-air film channel, though a fair bit harder to stumble across since a 2025 reshuffle of the Freeview line-up (more on that below). Tonight, Sunday 16 August 2026, the evening opens with Abducted, a prison-set thriller with Sarah Wynter, before Web Of Lies sends a security specialist chasing the truth behind a fraud she’s been framed for, and Liam Neeson’s ice-road rescue picture leads into Bruce Willis and Cole Hauser’s Acts of Violence to close out the night.

GREAT! Movies Schedule: Sunday 16 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete GREAT! Movies schedule for Sunday 16 August 2026, on Freeview 62.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on GREAT! Movies today

The overnight hours open with two action pictures. Mercenary for Justice plays at 12:34am, a 2006 Steven Seagal vehicle about a hired gun breaking a drug lord’s son out of a maximum-security prison. Michael Jai White’s The Commando follows at 2:16am, a 2022 thriller in which a DEA agent home from a botched job has to defend his own family from the gang he crossed.

Two vintage westerns fill the small hours. Abilene Town takes the 3:55am slot, a 1946 picture with Randolph Scott, Edgar Buchanan and a young Lloyd Bridges, set among cattlemen and homesteaders clashing in post-Civil War Kansas. The Quick And The Dead follows at 5:36am — not the 1995 Sharon Stone western of the same name, but a 1963 war drama with Victor French and Majel Barrett, following American soldiers trying to reach safety through enemy-occupied Italy.

Air Rescue then holds the mid-morning, seven short editions back to back from 7:14am to 9:49am, following the pilots and paramedics of Australia’s Westpac Lifesaver helicopter service as they’re scrambled to a fresh emergency each episode.

Hellgate takes over at 10:14am, a 1952 Sterling Hayden western about a rancher wrongly jailed in a desert prison just as a plague outbreak threatens to overwhelm it. Dead Lines follows at 11:47am, a 2010 thriller with Jeri Ryan as an eco-fashion designer whose big launch is derailed when an employee turns up dead. Dispatch airs at 1:20pm, a 2016 thriller with Fiona Gubelmann as a 911 operator who brushes off a child’s call as a hoax, only for a body to surface afterwards. Abducted gets its first airing of the day at 2:50pm, ahead of an evening repeat (see below), and Second Chances closes out the afternoon at 4:25pm, a 2010 thriller with Melissa George as a journalist stalked by someone from her past after once vouching for a man later exposed as a killer.

GREAT! Movies tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the GREAT! Movies primetime line-up for tonight, Sunday 16 August 2026.

Abducted — GREAT! Movies, 6pm

Sarah Wynter opens the evening as a prison warden’s wife who starts visiting an inmate she’s convinced was wrongly convicted. She helps him break out in this 2006 thriller, and only once they’re on the run together does she begin to question whether her judgement about him holds up. Andrew W. Walker co-stars.

Web Of Lies — GREAT! Movies, 7:35pm

At 7:35pm, Majandra Delfino plays an internet security specialist whose seemingly ideal boyfriend turns out to have used the relationship to set her up for bank fraud. The 2009 thriller spends its second half on her efforts to convince federal investigators of her innocence before the case closes against her.

The Ice Road — GREAT! Movies, 9:08pm

Tonight’s biggest name arrives at 9:08pm. Liam Neeson plays a big-rig driver recruited to haul heavy equipment across a frozen lake to reach miners trapped after a collapse, in a 2021 thriller that spends its back half wondering which member of the convoy can actually be trusted once the ice starts giving way. It’s the pick of the night if there’s only time for one film.

Acts of Violence — GREAT! Movies, 11pm

Bruce Willis and Cole Hauser reunite for this 2018 thriller, closing out the night at 11pm. Hauser’s army veteran turns to Willis’s detective when his brother’s fiancée is snatched by traffickers, and the pair pull in the rest of the family to track her down before the trail runs cold.

What kind of films are on GREAT! Movies

Classic Hollywood and westerns

The overnight schedule is where the channel’s deepest library lives: 1950s and ’60s Hollywood, John Wayne westerns through to Alan Ladd dramas, accumulated over more than a decade of broadcasting. It’s also the only stretch of the day where the films are genuinely old rather than just cheap, and if you set a recorder for anything here, set it for the small hours.

Lifetime-style crime and thriller movies

Daytime belongs to the made-for-TV thriller that Lifetime and its American equivalents turn out at pace. Missing persons, family secrets, one twist, done inside 90 minutes. Quality swings about a good deal from title to title, and none of it is trying to be more than something to have on.

Contemporary action and thriller premieres

Evenings bring newer titles, generally from the last five to twenty years, mostly domestic-menace thrillers with the occasional proper action picture and a recognisable lead.

How to watch GREAT! Movies

Channel numbers

GREAT! Movies isn’t where it used to be. Here’s where to actually find it now:

Until 4 September 2025 this was an ordinary aerial-only channel on Freeview 50 and Sky 321. GREAT! Mystery has those slots now. Nothing about it costs money, but the broadband requirement is the bit that catches people out, particularly anyone still using an older box.

Streaming online

GREAT! Movies streams free through Great! Player at great-player.com, no account required, with apps for Amazon Fire TV, YouView, and Samsung and LG smart TVs, plus the App Store and Google Play. Alongside the live stream there’s a library of past films, which is how you pick something up after it has aired.

GREAT! sister channels

GREAT! Movies is one of five channels Narrative Entertainment UK Limited runs under the GREAT! banner, all of them part of Sony’s UK line-up before the 2021 sale and rebrand.

All five sit in the same Great! Player app, which is how you reach GREAT! Movies on the platforms that no longer list it.

Frequently asked questions

What channel is GREAT! Movies on Freeview?

Channel 62, a connected Freeview Play slot since 4 September 2025, so it needs broadband as well as an aerial. Older Freeview boxes and standalone recorders without internet access can’t tune in. Freely carries it on 57.

Is GREAT! Movies still on Sky and Virgin Media?

Not under this name. Its old Sky slots (321, HD 318, +1 322) and Virgin Media slot were permanently rebranded to GREAT! Mystery in the same swap. Great! Player is the way to watch it if your TV isn’t set up for Freeview Play or Freely.

What’s on GREAT! Movies tonight?

Abducted at 6pm, with Sarah Wynter as a prison warden’s wife who helps an inmate she believes is innocent break out, Web Of Lies at 7:35pm with Majandra Delfino, The Ice Road at 9:08pm with Liam Neeson, and Acts of Violence at 11pm with Bruce Willis and Cole Hauser. Liam Neeson in The Ice Road is the most recognisable name on tonight’s schedule.

Is GREAT! Movies free to watch, and does it carry adverts?

Free on all three: Freeview Play, Freely and Great! Player. There are ad breaks during films, as on any commercially funded channel, but no subscription and no sign-in required.

Who owns GREAT! Movies?

Narrative Entertainment UK Limited. It launched on Sky in May 2012 as Sony Movie Channel, reached Freeview in January 2017, became Sony Movies in 2019, and took the GREAT! Movies name in May 2021 after Narrative Capital bought Sony’s UK free-to-air channels.

What are the GREAT! sister channels?

GREAT! Action (Freeview 42), GREAT! TV (Freeview 34), GREAT! Romance (Freeview 52) and GREAT! Mystery (Freeview 50), which took over GREAT! Movies’ old, more prominent Freeview slot. All stream free via Great! Player.

Can I watch GREAT! Movies online for free, and is there catch-up?

Yes. Great! Player at great-player.com, plus apps on Freeview Play, Freely, YouView, Amazon Fire TV, and Samsung and LG smart TVs. No account needed, and the film library works as catch-up.

Verdict

The programming hasn’t got worse. The finding of it has. A channel that used to be a couple of button presses away now wants a broadband connection, a Freeview Play box or the Great! Player app, and some willingness to go looking, which is a genuine cost for something whose whole appeal was being there when you flicked past it.

Whether the effort is worth it depends on the night. Tonight’s line-up runs Sarah Wynter’s prison-set thriller Abducted into Majandra Delfino’s fraud thriller Web Of Lies, before Liam Neeson’s ice-road rescue picture and Bruce Willis and Cole Hauser’s Acts of Violence close things out at 11pm. A solid rather than essential Sunday, but a reasonable one to leave on.

Related: Film4 TV Guide | Freeview Channel Guide | Films on TV This Week