There was a lot of dramatic plunging going on at Sunday's 74th Golden Globes, and we don't just mean the necklines of several actresses' gowns.

We also mean the emotional rollercoaster of surprise wins, speechmakers tearfully thankful for the sacrifices made by their supporting families, denunciations of President-elect Donald Trump, and the often cringe-worthy jokes made by emcee Jimmy Fallon and the presenters. Here are some of those highlights and lowlights.

HONORABLE MENTION:

Denzel's dead-in-the-eyes-but-still-awesome thumbs up is the GIF we need and deserve.
BEST
1. The Opening Number
In case you didn't predict that "Stranger Things." #SynchronizedBarbs.)
The whole thing was a lot like "La La Land" in that, whether you liked it or not, you had to be impressed just by the technical feat of pulling it off. (Bonus points for working Game of Thrones" character's resurrection; he Skyped in his performance from London.) The lyrical and visual jokes went by too fast to spot; this is one you'll be re-watching on your DVR for days.

WORST
2. The Opening Monologue
Fallon's first live bit started ominously, with a TelePrompTer malfunction, but he vamped well until the machine came back online. (He also got in a good inside joke later referencing both Mariah Carey and Dick Clark Productions, the company behind both Carey's hot-mess New Year's Eve performance and the Globe show.) It might have been better, though, if the TelePrompTer had stayed broken, since Fallon's opening jokes weren't that funny.

Most were lazy barbs about Donald Trump that came off sounding like sour grapes from the comic who made Trump look like a cuddly uncle last year by tousling the Republican's hair on "The Tonight Show." The best thing about the monologue: it was mercifully brief.

BEST
3. Julia Louis-Dreyfus
She didn't say anything during the sight gag that had her subbing for DJ Questlove while wearing his glasses, lapel pin, and hair pick. But she didn't have to. The "Veep" star is simply hilarious, end of story.

WORST
4. "Hidden Fences"
Both red-carpet interviewer Jenna Bush Hager and onstage announcer Michael Keaton mangled the name of current inspirational hit "Hidden Figures," conflating it with fellow Globe nominee "Fences." It was as if there wasn't room in the speaker's minds for the names of two movies showcasing black casts. Backstage, "Carol" screenwriter Phyllis Nagy told reporters that Keaton was joking, but if that's true, it was hardly apparent to viewers in the ballroom and at home.

BEST
5. Sunny Pawar
All due respect to the "Stranger Things" cast, but the most adorable kid at the Globes was the 8-year-old "Lion" star. He out-cuted everyone during his introduction of his movie (nominated for Best Film - Drama) along with co-star Dev Patel, who hoisted the pint-sized actor aloft so that he could reach the microphone.

WORST
6. No "In Memoriam" Reel
There was such an unusually large number of celebrity deaths in 2016 that the show dealt with them by not dealing with them. Instead, there was a short clip paying tribute to the tragic double-whammy loss of Carrie Fisher and her equally iconic mom, Debbie Reynolds, within one day of each other during the final week of the year.

Which was nicely done, but which meant that the fallen stars who meant a lot to fans worldwide got no love at all. Yet somehow, the show found time later to run a jokey montage of actors talking about their crappy first jobs -- a bit that they do live every year at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

BEST
7. Steve Carell and Kristen Wiig
The "Despicable Me 2" duo introduced the Animated Movie nominees with what were supposed to be heartwarming stories of their own childhood experiences seeing their first animated movies. But the nostalgic memories turned out to be horrific, haunting, heart-wrenching tales of broken families and unforgettable childhood traumas. (Naturally, one of the stories involved seeing "Bambi.")

Yeah, it was a weird, dark bit, but Carell and Wiig delivered the material expertly and uproariously.

WORST
8. Forgiveness
Doesn't matter what you've done, whether it's sexually harass women or make one of Hollywood's biggest bombs, you'll eventually be forgiven at the Golden Globes. Witness all the love for "Hacksaw Ridge" director Mel Gibson, or Best Actor - Drama winner Casey Affleck.

Brad Pitt, who's been keeping a low profile since the ugly allegations broke surrounding his split from Angelina Jolie, got an ovation just for showing his face in public (he was there to present the nominated drama "Moonlight," which he co-produced).

Somewhere, with his laptop plunked on a table in a dimly lit Starbucks, "Birth of a Nation" writer-director Nate Parker is busy plotting his 2027 comeback.

BEST
9. Meryl Streep
Fittingly, the segment awarding Streep the Globes' Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement prize was the show's most dramatic. It began with Streep's "Doubt" co-star Viola Davis introducing her with a speech full of personal reminiscences and the compliment, "You make me proud to be an artist." Streep ramped up the drama by delivering an impassioned, unabashedly political speech despite having lost much of her voice (to "screaming and lamentation," she said).

She echoed a joke that "Night Manager" honoree Hugh Laurie had made earlier, that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (which hands out the Globes) represented at least three groups (Hollywood, foreigners, and the press) out of favor with the incoming administration -- but unlike Laurie, Streep got a sustained laugh from the assembled stars. She noted the foreign births of some of the evening's biggest stars and added that, without such outsiders, "you'll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts."
She then called out the performance that affected her the most deeply this year, Donald Trump's mockery of a disabled New York Times reporter. "It kind of broke my heart," she said, adding, "This instinct to humiliate, when it's modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody's life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing." But she ended by suggesting that she would channel her outrage into her work. "As my friend, the dear departed Princess Leia, said to me once, take your broken heart, make it into art."

Whether or not you agreed with her sentiments, Streep offered the kind of unpredictable spontaneity and heart-stopping suspense that awards shows like the Globes usually go out of their way to avoid.

WORST
10. Sylvester Stallone and Carl Weathers
Actually, it was pretty great to see the two "Rocky" rivals together, 40 years later. But they'd been oversold by the announcer as two surprise movie "icons," so the reveal was something of a disappointment. (Besides, Stallone wasn't that big a surprise; he won a Globe last year, and his three daughters shared the Miss Golden Globes honor of escorting the nominees on and off the stage.)

Plus, Stallone and Weathers had nothing much to say, except Stallone's churlish wish that he hadn't written a victory for Weathers' Apollo Creed into the "Rocky" screenplay. The only thing not anti-climactic about their appearance was their announcement of a Best Drama win for "Moonlight," a surprising choice ("Manchester by the Sea" was the crystal-ball pick) but also a richly deserving one.