Almost all adaptations are foreign. The Moscow Art Theatre mounted a production entitled Nikolai Stavroqin; it was produced by Nemirovich Danchenko. Albert Camus wrote a play based on the novel in 1959. Perhaps most notable is the French motion picture version, tided Les Possedes.

It was directed by Andrzej Wajda, written by Jean-Claude Carriere, and starred Omar Sharif and Isabelle Huppert, as Stepan Trofimovitch and Maria Shatov, respectively. It appeared in 1987. There was also an Italian stage version called The Demons, written by D. Fabri.