What to Watch Tonight UK · Friday 23 October 2026
It is Friday, Halloween is eight days away and the nights are drawing in, so tonight is all about horror and sci-fi. BBC Two has the slasher that started it all at 10pm. Prime Video has a British chiller about the video nasty panic that far too few people have seen. And for Star Trek fans, there is a Borg two-parter with one of the strangest cameos the franchise ever pulled off.
Tonight’s three picks
NEW TONIGHT: Halloween (1978) on BBC Two at 10pm
- Channel: BBC Two at 10pm, until 11.30pm
- Runtime: About 1 hour 30 minutes
- Age rating: 15
- Director: John Carpenter, with Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence
- Straight after: The horror comedy The Blackening, BBC Two at 11.30pm
- UK availability: Free-to-air on BBC Two tonight, and on BBC iPlayer now. The 2018 sequel, also called Halloween, has just arrived on Netflix in the UK
On Halloween night in 1963, six-year-old Michael Myers kills his sister. Fifteen years later he escapes and heads home to Haddonfield, where babysitter Laurie Strode, played by Jamie Lee Curtis in her first film role, becomes his target. Carpenter made it on a tiny budget, and every trick still works: the prowling camera, the empty suburban streets and that piano theme. Watch it with the lights off, a week before the big night.
Perfect if you liked Scream, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre or It Follows. If you want more, the 2018 sequel picks up 40 years later on Netflix. Plan the rest of the week with our UK Release Calendar.
HIDDEN GEM: Censor (2021) on Prime Video
- Service: Prime Video, new to the service this week. Also free with ads on Channel 4’s streaming service
- Runtime: 1 hour 24 minutes
- Age rating: 15
- Director: Prano Bailey-Bond, with Niamh Algar
- UK availability: Streaming now on Prime Video, included with membership
It is 1985, and Britain is in a panic about video nasties. Enid, played brilliantly by Niamh Algar, is a film censor who watches the worst horror films so the public does not have to. When one tape seems to show her sister, who vanished when they were children, the line between the screen and her life starts to blur. It is clever, nasty and very British, and it is perfect for a Friday in late October.
Perfect if you liked Berberian Sound Studio, Saint Maud or Possessor.
STAR TREK CLASSIC: Star Trek: The Next Generation — “Descent”, parts one and two (1993)
- Service: Paramount+
- Episodes: Season 6, episode 26 and season 7, episode 1
- Runtime: About 45 minutes each
- Age rating: 12
- Also tonight: Sky Mix shows part two at 7pm
- Why now: Roddenberry Entertainment says Star Trek is at a crossroads, and a convention has been set for The Next Generation’s 40th birthday
- UK availability: Streaming now on Paramount+
The Borg are back, but they are not the Borg we know. These ones have names, they fight as individuals, and someone is leading them. Meanwhile Data feels his first emotion, which is anger, and does not like what it says about him. Part one opens with Data playing poker on the holodeck against Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, played by Hawking himself. Watch both parts back to back for a proper Friday double bill.
Perfect if you liked Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Picard season three or “The City on the Edge of Forever”, our last Star Trek pick. Find your next mission in our Star Trek watch guide.
Movieversalfilm Takeaway
Warm up with the Borg on Paramount+, then settle in for Halloween on BBC Two at 10pm. If you are still awake at 11.30pm, The Blackening follows. Save Censor for the weekend if you need to, but do not miss it.
What are you watching tonight?