Sundance 2024: Super/Man Christopher Reeve documentary leaves film festival audience members in tears

Sundance Film Festival 2024 audiences were left in tears after the premiere of moving documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story. The feature-length documentary about the late film star and disability rights advocate premiered at Sundance on Sunday.

The film uses home video and archival footage, alongside new interviews with Reeve’s three children and fellow actors to paint a picture of the star’s life, whilst Reeve’s own voice, taken from two audiobooks he had recorded, narrates much of the story.

Super/Man follows Reeve’s rise to fame as the Man of Steel, the terrible accident that left him paralysed and changed his career, his friendship with stars like comedian Robin Williams, and his fight in the last decade of his life to advocate for disabled people.

Who was Christopher Reeve?

Christopher Reeve was an early star of superhero movies, playing Clark Kent/Superman in one of his first ever film roles. He reprised the role three more times over his career and appeared in other major films including The Remains of the Day, Village of the Damned, and Above Suspicion, but he would forever be best known as Superman.

In 1995, Reeve suffered a devastating accident when he was thrown from a horse during an equestrian competition in Virginia, leaving him permanently paralysed from the waist down, and reliant on a wheelchair and ventilator.

Following his accident, Reeve became an advocate for disabled people - particularly those living with spinal cord injuries. He lobbied the US government to improve insurance payments to disabled people, and successfully supported an act to allow disabled people to continue to receive benefits after returning to work.

He travelled the world giving speeches on issues affecting disabled people, hosted the paralympics in Atlanta, and called for more work and funding on stem cell research.

Reeve continued to act, appearing in the 1998 remake of Rear Window, and two episodes of Superman inspired drama series Smallville. Reeve died following a cardiac arrest in 2004, aged 52.