Full 5Action listings for Tuesday 27 October 2026, with times in London local time.

The best thing on 5Action tonight is a spaghetti western in the afternoon

See also: What's on tonight across all channels | Wednesday's TV guide

By 7pm 5Action has settled into Police Interceptors, which is on at 6pm, 7pm and 8pm, and also at 10.25am and 11.25am. That is five airings in one day of a show with 61 episodes to date, so the evening is not short of it. If the programme is your thing, you will have an unusually easy night. If not, the better option sits earlier.

Day of Anger is the pick. It is a 1967 Tonino Valerii spaghetti western with Lee Van Cleef and Giuliano Gemma, and it starts at 2.10pm. The channel breaks it into two parts, 60 minutes and then 45 after a short news bulletin at 3.10pm, and the whole film is on again on 2 November. Before it, at 12.30pm, comes Shotgun, a 1955 western with Sterling Hayden and Yvonne De Carlo, again in two parts. Of the pair, Day of Anger is the one I’d choose, and the only afternoon slot that I would rearrange my day for.

After the Police Interceptors run, Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders takes 9pm. It airs twice today, with an earlier showing at 5pm, and it is up against Gogglebox on E4 and Blue Lights on BBC One. It is a safe, undemanding hour.

The most interesting late slot is Forensics: Crash Scene Investigators at 10pm, which is listed as the start of series 2. It is the one genuine change of pace in primetime, and it faces Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on 5USA. The X-Files follows at 11pm with Redrum, episode 6 of series 8, for anyone still up.

Overnight, Murder 360 starts its run at midnight, and Ice Road Truckers begins series 11 at 1am.


Also on TV tonight at 9pm

  • BBC One: Blue Lights
  • BBC Two: Surgeons: At the Edge of Life
  • ITV1: New: Unbelievable Moments:…
  • Channel 4: The Great British Bake Off (from 8pm)
  • Channel 5: Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild
  • BBC Four: The Normans
  • ITV2: Big Brother
  • ITV3: Vera (from 8pm)
  • ITV4: Junk and Disorderly
  • E4: Gogglebox

Every channel tonight, side by side · Films on TV tonight · Tomorrow’s TV


Frequently asked questions

What’s on 5Action tonight?

On Tuesday 27 October 2026, 5Action shows Police Interceptors at 7pm, Police Interceptors at 8pm, Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders at 9pm and Forensics: Crash Scene Investigators at 10pm.

Is there a film on 5Action tonight?

No. 5Action has no films in its evening schedule on Tuesday 27 October 2026.

What’s on 5Action late tonight?

After 11pm, 5Action has The X-Files at 11pm.

What time does 5Action’s evening start?

The evening schedule starts with Police Interceptors at 6pm.

Police chases by evening, old westerns in the afternoon

5Action is a British channel that launched in 2018, and its schedule runs on two very different fuels. One is road-crime and police reality, which takes 45% of the evening between 7pm and 11pm. The other is film, mostly westerns from the 1950s and 1960s, which accounts for 16% of the channel’s airtime across the whole day. Put those together with a long overnight run of trucking documentaries and you have a channel that knows exactly which corner of the audience it is talking to.

Across the 34 days we tracked, 81% of airtime went to titles that came back on three or more days. That is a lower share than some of its neighbours, and the films are the reason: a western usually turns up on only a handful of days before it gives way to the next one.

What its day looks like

5Action’s day starts with sales. Teleshopping ran on all 34 days, usually from around 4am, and Cruise TV with LoveitBookit, a holiday-selling slot, held 7am on every one of them too. Shopping makes up 15% of the channel’s airtime, all of it outside primetime.

Entertainment News On 5 is the other daily constant, and the most frequent title on the channel by a distance: 123 airings across all 34 days, typically short bulletins dropped into the morning from around 9am and repeated through the day. Mid-morning then belongs to motoring rescue series such as Winter Road Rescue, Motorway Patrol and Car Pound Cops: Give Me My Car Back!

The afternoon is where the films sit. Westerns fill the early and middle part of the day, often from around 2.45pm, and some recur: Sabata and No Name on the Bullet each aired on four days, eight times apiece. By late afternoon the police take over. Traffic Cops usually holds 4pm, Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders 5pm, and Police Interceptors arrives at around 6pm.

The evening, 6pm to 10.30pm, is built on two strands. Police Interceptors held 7pm on 25 of the 34 days, often in double helpings, and Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders followed at 8pm on 25 days, every time in the same slot. The 9pm slot is the channel’s film night when it has one: Den of Thieves, Brannigan, Cold Pursuit, A Fistful of Dollars and Bloodsport each took it on one or two nights. Otherwise 9pm goes to the American series Cops. At 10pm the channel rotates through short runs: Highway Thru Hell, Timber Titans, Police: Night Shift 999 and Fare Dodgers: At War With The Law each held that slot for five nights.

The X-Files closes most days. It aired on 32 of the 34 days, usually at 11pm, the only drama fixture in the schedule. After midnight the lorries come out: Trucking Hell ran on 31 nights, typically around 2am, and Ice Road Truckers and Outback Truckers fill much of the rest of the small hours.

5Action also carries live American football. Live: NFL on 5 appeared five times in the window, always at 5.30pm, which in practice means Sunday evenings in the NFL season.

Popular shows on 5Action

Police Interceptors is the backbone of the channel. It is a British documentary and reality series that began in 2008, with five series and 61 episodes on record, and 5Action showed it 134 times in five weeks. On a typical day it airs four or five times.

Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders is the evening’s second hour, a crime documentary series that held 8pm with complete regularity.

Traffic Cops is a documentary series that began in 2003 and was first shown on BBC One. It ran to 14 series and 105 episodes, and here it is the 4pm fixture on most days.

The X-Files is the late-night drama and science fiction staple, on almost every night of the window.

Trucking Hell is the overnight documentary about lorries and the people who drive them, with 76 airings, most of them in the small hours.

The westerns deserve their own mention because they give the channel its character. Audie Murphy is the face of the strand: No Name on the Bullet (1959, directed by Jack Arnold), Ride Clear of Diablo (1954), The Cimarron Kid (1952, Budd Boetticher) and Hell Bent for Leather (1960) all star him. Gary Cooper appears in The Westerner (1940, William Wyler) and Springfield Rifle (1952). Other names from the strand include Arthur Penn’s The Left Handed Gun (1958) with Paul Newman, Anthony Mann’s The Tin Star (1957) with Henry Fonda, Robert Aldrich’s The Last Sunset (1961) with Kirk Douglas, and Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars (1964) with Clint Eastwood. In the evening, the films are more modern and more violent: Den of Thieves (2018) with Gerard Butler, Cold Pursuit (2019) with Liam Neeson, and Bloodsport (1988) with Jean-Claude Van Damme, plus John Wayne in Brannigan (1975).

How to watch 5Action

5Action is free to air on Freeview channel 46. It is also carried on Sky and Virgin Media. You can watch it live and catch up on recent programmes through 5, the free streaming service formerly known as My5. You need a TV Licence to watch or record it live, as with any channel broadcast in the UK.

5Action and its sister channels

5Action sits in the same family as Channel 5, 5USA, 5Star and the newer 5Drama. It shares some of its police series with 5Star, which runs Police Interceptors and Traffic Cops in the afternoon but turns to hospital documentaries in the evening rather than more chases. 5USA is the family’s home for American crime and legal drama, and Channel 5 is the main channel, with the soaps and new programmes. 5Drama, as the name says, is for drama.

Away from the family, Great! Action is the closest match for the films, with movies taking almost half of its evening. Legend mixes films with older American action and science fiction series, Walker, Texas Ranger among them.

Who it’s for

5Action is for someone who likes the police on the motorway, lorries on frozen roads and a western in the afternoon, and does not need any of it to be new. Drama is thin: outside The X-Files it barely appears on weekdays, though its share climbs from 5% to 11% at the weekend. If you want a modern action film, the 9pm slot is worth checking, but it does not have one every night.

What channel is 5Action on Freeview?

5Action is on Freeview channel 46.

Can I watch 5Action online?

Yes. It streams live, with catch-up, on 5, the free streaming service that used to be called My5.

What’s on 5Action most evenings?

Police Interceptors at 7pm and Motorway Cops: Catching Britain’s Speeders at 8pm, then a film or the American series Cops at 9pm.

Does 5Action show films?

Yes. Film is about a sixth of its airtime, mostly classic westerns in the afternoon, with an action or crime film at 9pm on some evenings.