Intimate footage and family insights in the heartfelt journey of Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story

While many will be familiar with the real-life story of how Superman star Christopher Reeve was left paralysed from the neck down as a result of a near-fatal horse riding accident in 1995, Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story offers a moving look at events through never publicly seen home movies, rare archival footage and frank interviews with Reeve’s three grown-up children and former partner, plus actors (like Glenn Close and Jeff Daniels) who were Reeve’s colleagues and friends. 

The documentary bounces in a non-linear fashion between events before and after the injury, which turned the already driven Reeve into an advocate for disability rights. 

However, it’s these unusually intimate, unfiltered segments that add extra emotional charge to the film. If you can make it through Super/Man without tearing up at least once, you need to pick up some Q20 for your mechanical innards. 

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story may have been denied an Academy Award nod earlier this year, but the feature has secured more than 30 accolades since its 2024 release. These include Best Documentary at the 2025 Baftas, a Producers Guild of America Award, and six Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards.

The film is directed by McQueen and Rising Phoenix documentary makers Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, and produced by South African Robert Ford. 

Born and raised in Wellington, Ford emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1997, aged 18, to study filmmaking. Getting his start as a runner, and fuelled by a “burning desire” to be in the industry, despite not having any connections, Ford worked his way through various roles, such as assistant editor and camera operator, before making his name as a production manager, and then documentary producer. 

The shift saw Ford work on bigger, more high profile projects, like the first 2019 season of perennially popular racing series Formula 1: Drive to Survive (as a field producer), followed by even more acclaimed sporting documentaries. 

These include The Deepest Breath, about free diver Alessia Zecchini; Sir Alex Ferguson: Never Give In, centred on the legendary Manchester United coach; and Rising Phoenix, which delves into the life stories of several Paralympics. It was this final project that connected Ford with Super/Man’s writer-directors.

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How did Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story come about, because it feels like it was facing so many hurdles, from family participation to buy-in from Warner Bros. If anyone said no at any stage — for example, you can’t tell the Christopher Reeve story without mentioning or showing Superman — the whole thing would fall apart. So what was the order that the pieces fell into place?

Robert Ford: Yes, the Reeve family had been approached many times over the years to do a documentary, and they had always said no. I think they finally said yes to this one because they were emotionally ready. It was coming up to 20 years since Chris’ death, and they had also recently reorganised all their archive footage in boxes at Chris’ old house. 

They were actually approached by the archive producer Daniel, who asked them if they wanted to make a documentary, and there were long, long conversations before they finally said yes. 

But it’s about building a relationship of trust with the family, and them knowing that we’re going to tell their story honestly. They didn’t want Chris to be put on a pedestal. They wanted him to be shown as a real person with flaws, so they were great collaborators. They didn’t have any creative control, but they were great to work with. 

Then with Warner Brothers, yes, we spent a long time negotiating the deal to license the Superman footage; a year organising that. We never expected they would want to buy or distribute the film, but then they did, and they ended up buying it right at the Sundance premiere (in January 2024) at 9 o’clock in the morning, and have since put the film out into the world in a really big way. It’s been seen in, like 1,100 cinemas in the US, and audiences really respond.

What are some of the primary differences between making a documentary film and a feature film? 

Robert Ford: With a documentary, we start with lots and lots of archive footage, and then we kind of find the film in the edit. It’s not very scripted from the start. You find the structure and the shape of it during months and months of editing. 

And with this film, we found such wonderful magical archive material that it led the film in whole new unexpected directions, because we had such personal, intimate archive footage from the Reeve family. Chris’ son Matthew filmed everything as a filmmaker; he always had a camera running. So there were many hours of very intimate footage in the Reeve home. So, yeah, it’s a very different process to a scripted film.

As a producer, what was your specific responsibility in regards to Super/Man? 

Robert Ford: There were three producers on this film, so I was one of three, and you take responsibility for the whole creation, production and delivery of the film. 

You hire all the heads of department and everybody who works on the film, and you’re responsible for the schedule and the budget and everything. It’s a lot of responsibility. And a lot of emails and phone calls.

Am I correct in saying that making the film took something like two-and-a-half years?

Robert Ford: I was on this film for two-and-a-half years, more like three years, and then the other producer, Lizzie (Gillett), was on it even longer, like four years. Including all the marketing and promotion it was obviously much longer. 

From concept, a documentary feature can often be as long as four or five years. Production itself, like once you get the money and you start filming and editing and making, that’s usually 18 months to two years. I’ve been on films longer and longer these days because now I’m involved in the marketing and promotion, so it’s a long journey.

Returning to a comment you made earlier, that as you were going through the archive footage, your approach changed. Could you elaborate on the surprises that came out of that process?

Robert Ford: I mean, I didn’t realise how much it would be a story about family, because the footage is so intimate and personal. It takes place in the Reeve home, and nobody had seen that footage before. Just how personal it was and how intimate it was, was a surprise, yeah.

Were there any moments or narrative directions that you were especially sad to see left out of the film? 

Robert Ford: Yeah, we call that killing your darlings, letting go of the scenes, all the moments that you’ve fallen in love with, but there just isn’t time for them or they just don’t really fit. That happens a lot, especially in a documentary with hundreds of hours of footage available. But I think what we ended up with and the scenes that are in the film, it really works because it takes you on an emotional journey. 

We spent a long time in the edit with a very talented editor crafting the story as a series of flashbacks. 

That idea came from Chris himself where he says in his autobiography: “When I was lying in the hospital bed after the accident, I saw my life as a slideshow in front of my eyes.” So we structured the film that way. And, I think when you watch it, it's wonderful because it feels really nostalgic. You’re slipping back and forth in time, but it works really beautifully.

It’s interesting that the documentary doesn’t sugarcoat Reeve. You see his fallibility, in his personal life, in his attitude to life with disability. Apart from the input from Reeve’s family, what was behind those decisions?

Robert Ford: I don’t want to make celebrity puff pieces, and my colleagues on this film don’t want to do that either. We’d rather show an honest warts-and-all portrayal, but I think with Chris, he was in his essence a really good person; like a kind, empathetic, thoughtful person who really tried to improve the lives of others. This was both before and after his accident. 

But then you also see that he went skiing the day after his son was born, and that’s kind of a shocking thing to hear. So he had these moments, and he also had other moments where he was really driven by ambition. But, on the whole, he was a really good person and I think that really comes across in the film.

You produced Paralympic documentary Rising Phoenix (2020), which has a thematic overlap — is that based on your interests, or did working in that earlier project sort of lead you into a frame of mind to look at and represent disability? 

Robert Ford: I’ve made a few films about disability now, and I think it’s important that disabled people are represented on the screen, but also behind the camera. We work with a lot of disabled talent on the production of these films, so they’re integral to the process.

But, thematically, I’m just drawn to great stories, and that film about the Paralympics had several athletes with wonderful, very dramatic stories. One of them was Ntando Mahlangu, the South African athlete. So we came and filmed in South Africa, which was a great experience, and I’d love to film in South Africa again.

As we’re watching funding for medical research and patient care being rolled back in the US, does that add to the importance and poignancy of Super/Man?

Robert Ford: Yeah, so the film really shows Chris’ legacy — Chris and [his wife] Dana’s, because they created the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, which has raised $140-million for spinal cord injury research and I think $44-million for quality of life grants, which is improvements to people's homes so they can get around in wheelchairs, that kind of thing. 

Chris’ three children continue to work with the foundation, so this is ongoing, and it really exists to improve people’s lives and people’s outcomes. 

But, yeah, seeing what’s happening in the US makes me sad. Also the withdrawal from environmental funding. But I think what a film like this shows is empathy for others, and care for others. Chris really manifested that in his life, so I hope people watching the film will be inspired by that and put that into action.

What are you currently working on?

Robert Ford: I am developing a few projects. I’m sort of starting my own company now, and I’m also doing my first film as a director. It’s a nature and environment story that takes place in the US, and it’s serious, but it’s also quite quirky and fun. Then I’m also doing a music documentary which is a series. It’s still also in development, but it’s about a very famous subject in the world of music. 

What do you hope audiences take to heart from Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story?

Robert Ford: That they will see a love story, and they will see the power of family and the power of human connection. And then it’s also about kindness and empathy because that’s what Chris needed after his accident, and then that’s what he also showed to others. I think audiences will find it really powerful. DM

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story is available for streaming in South Africa now through Showmax. This story was first published on PFangirl.