Some of the non-English films getting the most attention these days hail from Asia, so perhaps it's not surprising that the best-reviewed foreign film of 2005 is Stephen Chow's "Kung Fu Hustle." With an adjusted score of 81.55 and a Tomatometer of 90%, this comedic actioner is absolutely delirious entertainment -- funny, dramatic, and exciting, with stunts that defy the laws of physics and reason. Chow stars as a man who clumsily gets on the wrong side of the ruthless Axe Gang, and must defend the weary-but-tough residents of Pig Sty Alley; some of the craziest action sequences ever captured on film ensue. A.O. Scott of the New York Times said, "Stephen Chow's kinetic, exhausting, relentlessly entertaining film throws scraps of a half-century of international pop culture into a fast-whirling blender." And Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times said, "When I saw it at Sundance, I wrote that it was 'like Jackie Chan and Buster Keaton meet Quentin Tarantino and Bugs Bunny.' You see how worked up you can get, watching a movie like this."

"Downfall," the controversial German film about Hitler's last days, comes in at second place with an adjusted score of 79.99 and a Tomatometer of 91%. Some people may disagree with this humanizing depiction of Hitler, but Ken Hanke of the Mountain Xpress pointed out that what the cast and crew do is "strip away the myth from the monster, laying bare the utter banality of his evil."

In third place is Kore-eda Hirokazu's "Nobody Knows," about a group of siblings raising themselves after their mother abandons them. "Never mind tears," said Eleanor Ringel Gillespie of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "It leaves you with a stunned heart." "Nobody Knows" has an adjusted score of 79.40 and a Tomatometer of 94%.

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