Gilbert (Hulu)

In an unexpected twist, one of the most touching love affairs in cinema last year may have been the notoriously vulgar comedian Gilbert Gottfried and his wife Dara. Director Neil Berkeley frames Gilbert sadly leaving their apartment for the road, her holding him dearly like a protective mother not wanting her kid to venture out into the world alone, and even gets him to open up about how much she means to him. Berkeley asks many of his friends about the relationship, and they are all flabbergasted by the couple, even after two decades. He takes his kids to museums and restaurants and there is a tenderness we don’t expect from the loud voice and obnoxious laugh we associate with him; that voice and laugh slyly disappear when Gilbert becomes more honest with the camera. She may not love every joke he makes, or his obsessive collection of every hotel shampoo he has gathered from 40 years on the road, but she loves him and he needs her.

This is just one of many surprises Berkeley throws at us through the movie. He touches on all the topics we expect–life on the road, a career plagued with controversial statements, the Disney films and filthy humor–but he also gets Gilbert to open up far more than those of us who have loved his comedy would have ever expected. The shields go down, even for a brief moment, and we finally witness the human behind the comedic monster. Like some of the other great documentaries about comedians we have had in recent years, like Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work or Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, it reminds us of the grind a life in show business can be, especially when you have to work for every cent and everything revolves around a public persona that isn’t always genuine. Gilbert Gottfried is called a comedian’s comedian, the kind that other stand-ups wait to see and cannot get enough of, but Berkeley’s film makes the case that he is a comedian for all of us.

Step (Hulu)

I don’t usually fall for heart-warming documentaries, but Step, about an inner-city girls step dance team at a charter high school in Baltimore, hits every note just right. Parts of it feel almost too trite, that they must have been generated for a film — the team, founded by a group of sixth graders six years earlier, has fallen into disarray but want to win one time before they graduate, one of the central figures has given up academically but is on the rebound to finally succeed, and some mothers are too engaged in their daughters’ lives while others are barely present. It is a Hollywood story through and through.

But director Amanda Lipitz never lets it fall into the traps of a Hollywood story. She handles the material intelligently and brushes by the moments that most other filmmakers may dwell on. The film leaves the stepping for large chunks of time, instead dwelling on the step-by-step journey the girls are taking to apply for college and prepare for a future away from step dancing. Lipitz seems less concerned what it takes to step dance successfully than with exposing the difficulties of college tuition for low-income families. She knows how much more interesting that journey can be, but also that we need a hook of a dance team to get us into the story. By the time we get to the end, however, the outcome of the final step competition seems like an afterthought next to the opening of college acceptance letters, the prayers of getting a scholarship to make an education possible, and the struggles to raise GPAs. That is what real life is for these girls, even if step dancing can be a compelling subplot.