The film stars an ensemble cast including Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Ralph Richardson, Peter Lawford, Lee J. Cobb, Sal Mineo, John Derek and George Maharis.

Preminger openly hired screenwriter Trumbo, who had been on the Hollywood blacklist for over a decade for being a communist and forced to work under assumed names.

After the Second World War, Katherine "Kitty" Fremont, a widowed American nurse, is sightseeing in Cyprus following a tour of duty for the U.S. Public Health Service in Greece.

Her guide mentions the Karaolos internment camp on Cyprus, where thousands of Jews — many of them Holocaust survivors — are detained by the British, who refuse them passage to Palestine.

Haganah rebel Ari Ben Canaan, a decorated former captain in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army in the Second World War, obtains a cargo ship.

Ari plots an escape to save Akiva's life, and free Haganah and Irgun fighters imprisoned by the British military.

Dov, who eluded capture after the hotel bombing, turns himself in to utilize his bomb-making expertise to facilitate the Acre Prison break.

Ben Canaan orders the younger children be evacuated to safety during the night as a small detachment of Palmach troops arrives to reinforce Gan Dafna's defenses.

Karen, ecstatic over the prospect of the new nation, goes to find Dov (who is on night patrol at the Gan Dafna perimeter) and proclaims her love for him.

The only assistance given by the British authorities was the placement of an armed guard on the large number of decommissioned rifles used as props in the film, to prevent them from falling into the hands of EOKA and being recommissioned.

[8] Uris was originally signed to write a screenplay of the film, but Preminger rejected his script as excessively anti-British and anti-Arab.

His biographer wrote that Trumbo refused "to go back to Old Testament times, and follow the Jews through the centuries of the Diaspora and the horror of the Holocaust."

[9] Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint had previously appeared together as the teenage lovers who subsequently marry in a 1955 musical version of Thornton Wilder's Our Town with Frank Sinatra as the stage manager, an episode of the anthology television series Producer's Showcase.

[11] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times described the film as a "dazzling, eye-filling, nerve-tingling display of a wide variety of individual and mass reactions to awesome challenges and, in some of its sharpest personal details, a fine reflection of experience that rips the heart."

"[1] Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times described the film as "a kaleidoscopic yet memorable impression of highlights from the long-time best seller by Leon Uris," with a "generally excellent" screenplay by Trumbo.

[12] Variety declared, "There is room to criticize 'Exodus'—its length might be shortened to advantage; perhaps Preminger tried to crowd too much incident from the book for dramatic clarity, and some individual scenes could be sharpened through tighter editing.

"[13] Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post stated that the film "has this vitality of the immediate and will be of incalculable influence in reaching those unfamiliar with the background of Israel ...

"[14] The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "Exodus lacks the historical imagination to cope with its theme on one level, the human awareness to dramatise it on the other.

He permits nearly everyone in his large cast to state his ideological and political convictions before and after each new turn of events, and the result is an awesome talkfest that is all too rarely interrupted by the popping of rifles.

[26] Other version were recorded by jazz saxophonist Eddie Harris, Mantovani, Grant Green, Manny Albam, Andy Williams, Peter Nero, Connie Francis, Quincy Jones, the 1960s British instrumental band the Eagles and the Duprees, who sang the theme with lyrics written by Pat Boone.

"[27] Often characterized as a "Zionist epic",[28][29] the film has been identified by many commentators as having been enormously influential in stimulating Zionism and support for Israel in the United States.