The filmmakers behind the new documentary “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story” are preoccupied with the qualities that contribute to one being considered a hero. The basic story of the eponymous actor’s life lends itself to such an inquiry: Primarily known for playing Superman, one of the most Herculean and valiant comic book characters, Reeve became paralyzed at the age of 42 after a horseback riding incident in 1995. His later dedication to causes important to people with disabilities then turned him into another icon, one of fortitude and tenacity. 

Having its premiere on HBO on December 7, the documentary delves into Reeve’s public and private lives, though close inspections of his career are often sidestepped in favor of focusing on the more heart-rending aspects of his injury and recovery. The portrait that emerges from the home video clips, movie scenes, and interviews with family members and fellow actors is of a man of immense intelligence, kindness, sensitivity, and dogged determination, one who was a hero but also human.

Rather than a chronological approach, directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui cut to different points in his life and work as his recovery plays out with its struggles and triumphs. We see and hear how he was an avid outdoorsman and sportsman, how despite an equine allergy he learned to ride horses during the filming of a TV movie version of “Anna Karenina.” The life-changing fall and the medical response are also detailed: how he flatlined after being thrown from his horse and how his head was essentially reattached to his body by doctors.

One aspect of his life viewers may not know of or remember is his friendship with Robin Williams. The two met in the early 1970s while studying at Juilliard and remained close until Reeve’s death in 2004. Actress Glenn Close, who worked with both Reeve and Williams, makes the heartbreaking observation later in the film that Williams may not have committed suicide in 2014 had his friend still been around. Needless to say, the comedian helped Reeve cope with being a quadriplegic in the immediate aftermath of the accident and in the years afterward.

Reeve’s upbringing gets but a glance, with his relationship with his difficult-to-impress father, writer and poet Franklin Reeve, sketchily portrayed and his mother barely acknowledged. The star’s two children with Gae Exton and his son with eventual wife Dana Morosini speak about their father throughout the doc, providing a view of him as a man who displayed some of the same tendencies as their grandfather. Still, the commentary supplied by his children further humanizes the actor who embodied a superhuman in four movies. 

The making of the first “Superman,” one of the first major Hollywood pictures based on a comic book character, gives the directing duo their most entertaining material. We’re told that celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Jenner (now known as Caitlyn), and even Neil Diamond coveted the part. Reeve’s love of flying small aircraft is aligned with clips from the film of the actor gliding gracefully through the air. Oldest son Matthew Reeve points out how his father didn’t just excel on screen during sequences of strength and heroism but also in moments of doubt and duality, such as the scene in which Clark Kent nearly tells Lois Lane about his Superman alter ego before they go on a date.

While the doc addresses Christopher’s difficulty in being taken seriously in Hollywood, it treats his non-Superman work before the accident as a footnote, with no references to the two films he made with Merchant Ivory, 1984’s “The Bostonians” and “The Remains of the Day” from 1993, among others. Discussion of the influence and impact his portrayal had on later depictions of the superhero would have been nice as well.

A majority of the documentary shows Reeve in a wheelchair, using family footage, news segments, and even scenes of him in the TV version of “Rear Window,” one of his few post-accident acting gigs. After returning to his home at Bedford, New York, he faced a myriad of health, financial, and mental issues, not to mention the adjustments his wife and children were compelled to undergo. The man persevered, though, as in his most famous role, appearing at the 1996 Academy Awards ceremony as well as the Democratic National Convention later that same year. He also established a foundation dedicated to finding treatments and cures for paralysis while directing a few movies, including one based on the life of the first quadriplegic to graduate from Harvard, Brooke Ellison.

As the film wraps up with his death and his wife’s passing from lung cancer less than a year and a half later, one is left with deep sadness even while being strangely uplifted by all that he achieved before and after his injury. At the start of the documentary, we hear him deem the United States “short on heroes,” and yet, regardless of your opinion on his statement, there’s little doubt that Christopher Reeve was a hero to many Americans and folks worldwide, with or without the cape.