The Grizzlies

Calling The Grizzlies a "Canadian high school sports movie" would significantly undersell its value. This little indie about lacrosse is right up there with Hoosiers, Miracle, and Friday Night Lights on the list of most powerful sports movies. It doesn't just defy sports movie cliches: It embraces and then exceeds the genre by delivering a meaningful and important story about an Indigenous community that has the highest suicide rate in North America. Not only are Kugluktuk's teens facing challenges like poverty and abuse, but they're trying to exist in a world where colonizers have marginalized their people and disrupted centuries of customs and culture.

It may raise some eyebrows, then, that the movie's "hero," Russ Sheppard, is a White man. But what initially looks like another White savior narrative is more a fish-out-of-water story. Sheppard arrives in Kugluktuk fired up and ready to attack his first teaching assignment before getting the heck out of the Arctic and into a sweet prep school gig. When he sees that his students aren't motivated to come to school, to participate, or to complete assignments, he applies the solutions that many White urbanites might consider common sense -- i.e. calling out "troublemakers." But he fails tragically. And that's where director Miranda de Pencier turns what seems like a Dangerous Minds-type film into a wake-up call. Trying to impose your way onto others, even those who seem to be struggling, can be far more damaging than effective. While The Grizzlies hits all the marks to leave you cheering, it will also leave you crying and, hopefully, thinking.