The miniseries is inspired by the Order of the Solar Temple cult case, responsible for the massacre of December 1995 in Isère and several mass suicides that resulted in 74 deaths in the 1990s, but it is not a direct recreation: the cult, village and characters are entirely fictional.

Creator Fanny Robert explained that the Order of the Solar Temple case had deeply affected her when she was thirteen or fourteen years old, because she heard about it constantly on television and it frightened her to know that such a tragedy had occurred so close to home.

The project was first presented to Netflix in mid-2021 by Fanny Robert and Maxime Berthemy, and was originally titled "True Crime" before being renamed Anthracite, in reference to the coal extracted from the mines of the Matheysin plateau.

Anthracite is the first "eco-production" made by Netflix in France: an eco-advisor, Alice Pigné, raised teams' awareness of environmental issues and assessed the CO2 emissions from the shoot so that 1% of the carbon cost would be donated to charities.

Filming took place between February and May 2023 over 75 days in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, bringing together 90 technicians, 60 roles and nearly 1,300 extras from the region.

The fictional city of Lévionna is largely based on Pont-en-Royans, but many other locations in Isère, Savoie and Drôme served as sets, such as the helicoidal garage in Grenoble for Solal's garage or the Mine Image of La Motte-d'Aveillans for the extraction galleries of the Arcacia laboratory.

The Sanctuary of Notre-Dame de La Salette was used to represent the exteriors of the psychiatric hospital after digital retouching erased the two bell towers of the basilica, the production wanting to give the buildings a New York appearance "like Gotham City" according to the words of director Julius Berg.

On March 29, 2023, filming in the Thaïs cave was interrupted after several people experienced headaches during equipment installation; carbon monoxide detection tests came back negative and filming was able to resume.

The soundtrack was composed by Judson Crane and David Quattrini, and several songs punctuate the episodes, including "What Is Love" by Haddaway (which returns several times), "VCR" by The xx and "Bright Horses" by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.