During one spring in the 1950s the complex relationships of four couples, of black, white and mixed race, play out against the pronounced social inequality dividing the ruling British elite and the slave-descended native population of a small (fictitious) West Indian island.

Maxwell Fleury (James Mason) is a white plantation owner's son who suffers from an inferiority complex and makes rash decisions to prove his worth.

David Boyeur (Harry Belafonte), an ambitious and self-advancing young black union leader emerging as a powerful politician, is diplomatically courted by Templeton yet seen by some as a threat to the white ruling class.

Mavis Norman (Joan Fontaine), the widow of the deceased elder scion of the Fleury plantation, Arthur, develops a romantic interest in David that leads to both attraction and tension between the two.

Denis Archer (John Justin), the governor's aide-de-camp and want-to-be novelist, becomes smitten by Margot Seaton (Dorothy Dandridge), a mixed-race beauty seeking to better her position in life through hard work over irrepressible feminine charm.

Insecure in his marriage, Maxwell magnifies a case of mistaken identity into the obsession that his wife is having an affair with Hilary Carson (Michael Rennie), an attractive and single former war hero.

A visiting American journalist, Bradshaw (Hartley Power), writes an exposé revealing that Maxwell's paternal grandmother was part black, which is resignedly confirmed by the senior Fleury.

Jocelyn learns she is pregnant by Euan, but, with a title and seat in the House of Lords lying ahead for him, does not wish to burden him with a child of mixed race.

Seeking to eliminate this roadblock to marriage and her daughter's happiness, her mother reveals to her that Julian Fleury was not her father but a fully white Englishman instead, the result of secreted affair.

[8] Zanuck said in October 1956 "Ridding myself of the obligation of conducting a large film establishment like 20th Century Fox hasn't meant any cessation of work.

[2] As a result of playing interracial love scenes with Harry Belafonte, Joan Fontaine received poison pen mail, including some purported threats from the Ku Klux Klan.

[15][16] The film received mixed reviews and its interracial themes meant it found initial difficulty in being booked in theaters in the Southern United States.

[20] Premiering in June 1957, Island in the Sun was a major box office success, opening at number one in the country with a first week gross of almost $500,000 in the 16 cities that Variety reported.

[22] A proposal was floated in 2009 to demolish the remains of the mansion used in the film,[23] at Farley Hill, Barbados, for the Maxwell Fleury estate Bel Fontaine.

There are now over 40 cover versions recorded by various artist such as The Merrymen, José Carreras, Caterina Valente in German, Henri Salvador in French ("Une île au soleil") and The Righteous Brothers, just to name a few.