Never Cry Wolf (1983) was one of Disney's first takes at a grittier, more mature venture, and they knocked it out of the park on the first swing. Never Cry Wolf is an adaptation of Farley Mowat's influential book by the same title, written in 1963. You can find this film at most any library, ours has three copies.From wikipedia...
In Northern Canada, a young government biologist named Tyler (Charles Martin Smith) is assigned to travel to the isolated Arctic wilderness to study the area's savage population of wolves. His orders are to gather proof of the wolves' ongoing destruction of caribou herds.Contact with his quarry comes quickly, as he discovers not a den of marauding killers, but a courageous family of skillful providers and devoted protectors of their young. Tyler is befriended by two Inuit who tell him their own stories about the wolves. As Tyler learns more and more about the wolf world he comes to fear, along with them, the onslaught of hunters (Brian Dennehy) out to kill the wolves for their pelts and exploit the wilderness.
Watch the trailer and some clips here. Or watch the whole shebang (for now) in pieces here.