The Golden Globe Awards were handed out this past weekend to the deserving and the not-so-deserving in equal measure. Nonetheless, the ceremony marks the beginning of awards season, so it is only fitting to count down the 10 best films of 2011.

10. Tabloid

The only documentary on my list in a year of really good documentaries, “Tabloid,” by doc giant Errol Morris, is not the typical social-activist film we have come to expect from the genre.
Instead, Morris gives us a hilarious portrait of love, Mormons, London and pet cloning. You truly have to see it to believe it. And yet, for all its crazy subject matter, “Tabloid” is always fair and only seldom exploitive.

9. Melancholia

The thematic sequel to Lars von Trier’s “Antichrist,” “Melancholia” seems to respond to the optimism of films like “Midnight in Paris” and is almost the antithesis to Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life.” (“The Tree of Death,” then?)
Like Malick, von Trier offers lush images and is often called pretentious. The film’s weakness is also its greatest strength – it is a black hole of despair. In “Midnight in Paris,” Gertrude Stein says that it is the artist’s job not to succumb to despair, but to find an anecdote for the emptiness of existence.
Von Trier is not interested in that second part.

8. The Descendants

Perhaps the most important thing to declare about Alexander Payne is how audaciously and confidently he is painting a picture of modern America. Payne has covered national and high school politics and the American road trip, from Hawaii to California wine country to Omaha, Neb. In “The Descendants,” Payne’s eye is no different.
Balancing unflinching dark comedy with a sincere compassionate tone, “The Descendents” is Payne’s safest film – and that’s saying something, considering we see painful scenes that take place in front of a woman in a coma.

7. Moneyball

Director Bennett Miller has shown a talent for deliberate pacing and for balancing small human dramas with epic themes and landscape. Of course, working from a script by Aaron Sorkin does not hurt, but Miller displays a careful and confident hand, never intervening, but carefully guiding the story each step of the way.
He is a major talent, and “Moneyball” is the greatest baseball film ever made.

6. Take Shelter

It is easy to read “Take Shelter” as an allegory for modern America. And sure, that reading fits quite nicely, but it should never distract from the intimate quietness of this beautiful film.
Michael Shannon gives the best performance of the year, and Jessica Chastain brings his wife to life beautifully. A scene late in the film, in which Curtis and his wife argue about whether to leave the storm shelter, remains one of the most poetic and perfect scenes of the year.

5. Shame

Reteaming with Michael Fassbender, director Steve McQueen crafts “Shame” into an intoxicating exploration of carnal desire. McQueen loves bodies and the tension between personal autonomy and political control over one’s own body.
With “Shame,” McQueen manages to bring a delicate humanity to one of society’s untouchables – the sex addict. Some cry afoul that this NC-17 film is all flesh and no philosophy.
They claim it is gratuitous. But I challenge them to name a less sexy film about sex this side of “Eyes Wide Shut.”

4. Weekend

This low-budget British indie feels like a gay “Before Sunrise.” There were fewer characters this year in film that were so compassionately conceived and lived-in as Russell and Glen. With its small and intimate scope, “Weekend” carefully explores the nuances of language, both spoken and shrugged, and the social politics of gay life in modern society.
The care and sincerity placed into every frame of “Weekend” brought shame to all of those hip and ironic rom-coms we suffer every year.

3. Hugo

In the hands of America’s great director, Martin Scorsese, “Hugo” is never merely kids’ fare. The second half morphs in to true movie magic.
Scorsese veterans – including editrix Thelma Schoonmaker, cinematographer Robert Richardson, and thespians Ben Kingsley, Ray Winstone, Emily Mortimer, Jude Law and Michael Stuhlbarg – work to bring the train station in Paris, and the boy who keeps its clocks running, to stunning and vivid life.
It is hard for even the toughest cynics to not be moved by the sheer joy of this film. I was particularly touched by the community of misfits who populate Scorsese’s last shot.
“Hugo” is a gushing love letter to cinema.

2. We Need to Talk about Kevin

What if you had a little boy and he hated you? Better yet, what if you hated him back?
With “We Need to Talk about Kevin,” Lynne Ramsay manages to make motherhood as frightening as David Lynch’s portrayal of fatherhood in “Eraserhead.”
Ramsay’s film is a master-class in the use of mise-en-scene to palpable suspense. Tilda Swinton continues to flex her muscles as one of our most fearless actresses.
Ezra Miller portrays a chilling older Kevin, a devilish teen who makes all the other kids with their pumped up kicks run, run, run, whilst resisting the temptation to make him evil through and through.

1. The Tree of Life

Unlike anything you have ever seen before, Malick’s film explores the origin of the universe and examines family life in Texas in the 1950s as a microcosm of the human story.
Its visuals are awe-inspiring; its elliptical structure hypnotizing. This is a polarizing film, but one that demands strong feelings whether they be love or hate.
“The Tree of Life” refuses to let you be apathetic.