Before Foundation, The Very Best Isaac Asimov Adaptation Happened 27 Years Ago

Published Nov 2, 2026, 12:15 PM EST

Nick Bythrow is a Lead Writer for ScreenRant. He has been writing for the site since September 2022. He graduated from Hampshire College in 2022, where he triple majored in Journalism, Communications, and Media Studies. When he's not writing about TV and movies for ScreenRant and his blog, Frayed Branches, Nick is penning speculative fiction and poetry on Amazon. He lives outside Boston, Massachusetts.

Before Foundation was made into a TV show, the very best Isaac Asimov adaptation graced the big screen 27 years ago. Apple TV's Foundation adaptation has been the biggest onscreen translation of Asimov's work in the modern era. While the story takes some liberties with its source material, the story is pulled from the pages of the sci-fi writer's novel series of the same name. Its success on the platform has allowed it to adapt various aspects of the source material, with Foundation season 4 expected to continue documenting its centuries-spanning, space-faring tale.

But Asimov's work has been adapted across a wide array of movies, long before Foundation gave his work a foothold in the world of television. This includes the Soviet-produced movie The End of Eternity, the sci-fi thriller Nightfall, and, most popular, I, Robot, a 2004 adaptation loosely inspired by Asimov's Robots series starring Will Smith. His work has been adapted across numerous movies, all of them with varying quality. However, Asimov's adaptations all deliver something new to his original work.

This includes one movie that's considered one of his best adaptations of all time, predating Foundation. That film is the 1999 sic-fi comedy drama Bicentennial Man. The movie pulls from both Asimov's 1976 novelette of the same name, as well as his 1992 follow-up novel The Positronic Man. It follows Andrew Martin (Robin Williams), an NDR series robot who acts as a servant to the Martin family. He wishes to become human, with the movie following 200 years of his life, starting with his service under family patriarch Richard Martin (Sam Neill).

Bicentennial Man Is Still The Best Movie Based On Isaac Asimov's Works

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Bicentennial Man was directed by Chris Columbus, best known for writing screenplays for classic adventure films like The Goonies and Gremlins, alongside directing the first three Harry Potter movies. Nicholas Kazan served as screenwriter, having previously written films like 1996's Matilda and 1998's Fallen. The movie plays on the idea of what it means to be human, with Williams' android character at the center of it all. It asks questions about humanity while balancing drama and comedy, giving its leads plenty to work with in that regard.

The movie garnered some mixed success when it was first released. Despite having a $100 million budget, the film was unable to succeed at the box office, garnering just $87.4 million during its run. That didn't stop it from getting plenty of award nominations, though, including a nomination at the Oscars for Best Makeup. As an adaptation of Asimov's work, the movie manages to capture what makes the author's writing so engaging, while also affording a late 20th century take that makes it stand out from the crowd.

Which Isaac Asimov Books Need A Movie Next?

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Asimov's books have only been adapted into 10 movies between 1966 and 2014. However, most have pulled from his short stories, with two of them being derivative of the Robots book series. The author wrote over 500 books across his career, many of which are in the realm of sci-fi, thus opening the door to plenty of stories in the genre that could be put onto the big screen. This includes the young adult series Lucky Starr, featuring space adventures starring its titular protagonist.

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Another, the award-winning The Gods Themselves, is a standalone book about Earth that's ripe for big screen translation. The book features parallel timelines and universes, which could make for a mind-bending tale that works as a film. Because of this, Foundation could easily be just the start of additional adaptations of Asimov's work, all of which are just waiting on the page to be pulled out onto the big screen, perhaps even rivaling the quality of Bicentennial Man.