[3] The film's cast includes Will Sasso, Ben Schnetzer, Tantoo Cardinal, Eric Schweig, Emerald MacDonald, Natar Ungalaaq, Anna Lambe, Paul Nutarariaq, Booboo Stewart, and Madeline Ivalu.

[4] In October, de Pencier won the Directors Guild of Canada award for Best Direction in a Feature Film.

[7] In a small Arctic town struggling with the highest suicide rate in North America, a group of Inuit students' lives are transformed when they are introduced to the sport of lacrosse.

In the small Arctic town of Kugluktuk, Nunavut, Russ Sheppard takes up a job as a history teacher to pay off his college debt to the Canadian government while waiting for an offer from St. Andrews, a prep school.

Russ complains to principal Janace, but she is reluctant to punish him as their struggles are a result of their culture putting family first and unnecessary education last.

Adam’s grandparents see him playing, and he stops coming to school or practice, and so does Zach as the latter has to hunt for his family who is starving.

Zach is arrested for stealing money from a cash register for his brother to fly to Toronto in his plan for them to escape his alcoholic parents.

After meeting the original Grizzlies students at a major lacrosse event in Denver, Steinfeld hired Frank Marshall as executive producer and Miranda de Pencier as director for the film.

Producer Stacey Aglok MacDonald was a local resident of Kugluktuk and attended the high school just before the Grizzlies was formed.

[8][9] Paid mentorship program was created to train Inuit actors, film crew, musicians and artists for the movie.

The site's critics consensus reads, "The Grizzlies scores thanks to exceptional performances and an authentic approach to storytelling that transcends sports drama clichés.

[12] According to producers Alethea Arnaquq-Baril and Stacey Aglok MacDonald, de Pencier was conscious of the potentially problematic racial aspect to the story, and worked with them to ensure that the screenplay centred the perspectives of Inuit youth and did not fall into white savior tropes;[13] however, the film has still been analyzed by some film critics through a white savior lens.

[14] On May 3, 2021, the actress playing Miranda Atatahak, Emerald MacDonald, was found murdered outside a cabin in Kugluktuk, Nunavut.

It’s hard to imagine the hilarious, energetic, sensitive, sharp, inimitable, and incomparable Emerald is gone," posted director/producer Miranda de Pencier and producer Alethea Arnaquq-Baril on Twitter.