A problem of flow and heat transfer in a non-Newtonian Maxwell liquid film over an unsteady stretching sheet embedded in a porous medium in the presence of a thermal radiation is investigated. The unsteady boundary layer equations describing the problem are transformed to a system of non-linear ordinary differential equations which is solved numerically using the shooting method. The effects of various parameters like the Darcy parameter, the radiation parameter, the Deborah number and the Prandtl number on the flow and temperature profiles as well as on the local skin-friction coefficient and the local Nusselt number are presented and discussed. It is observed that increasing values of the Darcy parameter and the Deborah number cause an increase of the local skin-friction coefficient values and decrease in the values of the local Nusselt number. Also, it is noticed that the local Nusselt number increases as the Prandtl number increases and it decreases with increasing the radiation parameter. However, it is found that the free surface temperature increases by increasing the Darcy parameter, the radiation parameter and the Deborah number whereas it decreases by increasing the Prandtl number.