Full Film4 listings for Tuesday 27 October 2026, with times in London local time.

Film4 has a Western afternoon and one big comedy at nine

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

The World’s End at 9pm is the film to watch on Film4 tonight. Edgar Wright directs, with Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman and Eddie Marsan, and at 130 minutes it takes up the whole of primetime. It is a science fiction comedy, and one of the better uses of a Tuesday night on any channel. It was also on the 21st, so it is not a rarity, but it is a rewatchable one. Four stars, and the pick.

It also has an easy night of competition. Gogglebox on E4, Blue Lights on BBC One and Motorway Cops on Channel 5 are all on at 9pm, and none of them offers a film.

Westerns until teatime

The daytime is a Western festival of a sort. The Nevadan (1950) runs at 11am with Randolph Scott and Dorothy Malone, They Rode West (1954) follows at 3.15pm with Robert Francis and Donna Reed, and The Guns of Fort Petticoat (1957) at 4.55pm with Audie Murphy. Each is around 100 minutes, and each airs on two days in the window. For anyone who likes the genre, that is a full afternoon; for everybody else, it is background.

The bigger afternoon film is The Devil at 4 O’Clock, at 12.40pm and 155 minutes. Spencer Tracy and Frank Sinatra lead, Mervyn LeRoy directs, and it is classed as a disaster film. It is the longest thing on the channel before the evening, and the pick of the daytime. Three stars.

Early evening and late

I, Robot starts at 6.45pm: Will Smith, Bridget Moynahan and Bruce Greenwood in a 2004 science fiction action film directed by Alex Proyas. It is a good warm-up for The World’s End, a different sort of science fiction. It airs again on the 31st. Three stars.

After the main film, I Came By at 11.10pm is a 2022 crime thriller from Babak Anvari with Kelly Macdonald, George MacKay and Hugh Bonneville. It is 135 minutes, so a late finish, but it is a decent choice if you are not ready to turn off. Three stars. Overnight, Walking and Talking, a 1996 comedy drama directed by Nicole Holofcener, is on at 1.20am, with teleshopping filling the rest.

Summary: one proper reason to be here, at 9pm, and a long afternoon of Westerns for those who want it.


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 Film4 tonight?

On Tuesday 27 October 2026, Film4 shows The World’s End at 9pm.

Is there a film on Film4 tonight?

Yes: I, Robot (2004) at 6.45pm, The World’s End (2013) at 9pm and I Came By (2022) at 11.10pm.

What’s on Film4 late tonight?

After 11pm, Film4 has I Came By at 11.10pm.

What time does Film4’s evening start?

The evening schedule starts with Teleshopping at 6.35pm.

A film channel that rarely shows the same film twice

Film4 is a British film channel that launched in 1998, and its schedule is the opposite of nearly every other channel we track. Most channels live on a handful of titles repeated daily; on Film4 only 37% of airtime went to titles that turned up on three or more days in our five-week window, and most of that 37% was teleshopping. No film was shown more than four times in 34 days. Film takes 54% of all airtime and 71% of primetime, with another 19% of primetime counted as drama, which in practice means more films. A typical day carries about ten programmes, and the shape of the day, old films by daylight and newer ones at night, is far more predictable than the titles.

What a day on Film4 looks like

Overnight and early morning. This is the channel’s weak spot. Teleshopping fills a long stretch of the small hours, usually from around 3.40am, and it is 21% of all airtime. LumoTV, a game show, sits at 8am on some days.

Late morning and afternoon. From about 11am Film4 becomes a classic-film channel. The 11am slot carried The Black Arrow, The Long Ships, Anastasia and Anzio in our window; the afternoon ran through war films and westerns from the 1940s and 1950s, with D-Day, the Sixth of June around 2.35pm, The Nevadan around 3.10pm and They Rode West, Hombre and The Man From Colorado in the 4pm to 5pm stretch. Randolph Scott, Glenn Ford, James Stewart and Richard Widmark are the faces you see most often in the afternoon.

The evening, 6pm to 10.30pm. Around 6pm the decade jumps forward. Le Mans ’66 took 6pm and Hidden Figures 6.30pm, the latter four times in the window, more than any other film. Comedies such as Taxi and Save Yourselves! held 7.10pm on some nights. 9pm is the headline slot, and it is usually a recent, well-known film: A Man Called Otto, No Hard Feelings, Nobody, Plane, Wrath of Man, The King’s Man, Gran Turismo and Top Gun: Maverick all took it, along with older hits such as The Green Mile and Die Hard 2: Die Harder. Short interview specials tied to the film, such as The Theory of Everything: Interview Special at about 8.50pm, fill the gaps between.

Late night. After the 9pm film Film4 gets bolder, with horror such as The Pope’s Exorcist at about 11.25pm. The window also took in Saint Maud, Censor, The Lodge, The First Omen and Lisa Frankenstein. Some of that horror belongs to the run-up to Halloween and should be read as seasonal; the channel’s taste for world cinema and awkward British films is the steadier habit.

Popular films and directors on Film4

Classic westerns are the backbone of the afternoon. Budd Boetticher’s Ride Lonesome and The Man From the Alamo, Anthony Mann’s The Man From Laramie, Delmer Daves’s Broken Arrow and The Last Wagon, and Samuel Fuller’s Forty Guns all appeared, alongside Rudolph Maté’s The Violent Men and The Siege at Red River.

War films sit beside them: The Bridge on the River Kwai from David Lean, Fixed Bayonets! from Samuel Fuller, Halls of Montezuma, Anzio and To Hell and Back.

Golden-age Hollywood turns up too. Billy Wilder’s A Foreign Affair and The Major and the Minor, Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt and Lifeboat, and Douglas Sirk’s Written on the Wind all ran in the window.

Edgar Wright’s comedies turn up as a set: Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World’s End, all with Nick Frost, all shown in the window.

Recent mainstream films go well beyond the 9pm list: Knives Out, The Martian and The Last Duel from Ridley Scott, Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Holdovers and The Menu all ran.

Independent and world cinema is the part of Film4 that no other free channel matches: Steve McQueen’s Shame, Shane Meadows’s Dead Man’s Shoes, Danny Boyle’s T2 Trainspotting and 127 Hours, Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light, and two films from Quentin Dupieux, Deerskin and The Second Act.

How to watch Film4

Film4 is free-to-air on Freeview channel 14 and Freely 14. On Sky it is listed with the film channels at 313 (312 on Sky Glass), on Virgin Media at 428 and on Freesat at 300. Film4+1 is on Freeview 47 and Sky 314. The free Channel 4 streaming service has a live Film4 stream and some of its films on demand. Watching any UK channel live needs a TV Licence.

Film4 and the rest of the Channel 4 family

Film4’s siblings are Channel 4, E4, E4 Extra, More4 and 4seven. None of them is a film channel. E4 comes closest, with an occasional blockbuster at 9pm such as a Mission: Impossible film. Channel 4 is news, documentaries and sitcom repeats; More4 is factual repeats; 4seven replays recent Channel 4 shows.

Elsewhere, Talking Pictures TV goes deeper into old British films, Great! Movies runs a more repetitive rotation of crime TV films, and Legend leans towards science fiction and adventure. For every film on the free channels over the coming days, see the films on TV page.

Who it’s for

Film4 is for someone who wants a film and is open to which one: an afternoon western, a 9pm hit from the last few years, or something subtitled after 11pm. It is a poor fit for anyone who wants a series to follow, and between about 3am and late morning there is very little worth watching.

What channel is Film4 on Freeview?

Film4 is on Freeview channel 14, and Film4+1 is on 47.

Can I watch Film4 online?

Yes. The free Channel 4 streaming service carries a live Film4 stream and some of its films on demand.

What time is the main film on Film4?

Usually 9pm. Over the five weeks we tracked, that slot carried a recent, well-known film on most nights.

Does Film4 repeat films a lot?

Far less than most channels. In 34 days no film was shown more than four times, and most were shown once or twice.