Phoenix

This haunting German movie is set in rubble-strewn 1945 Berlin after war’s end. Nelly, a Jewish nightclub singer, returns from Auschwitz with a bullet-scarred face, undergoes reconstructive surgery and starts searching for her beloved husband, Johnny. She finds him at the Phoenix nightclub, but he does not recognize her—or is he only pretending because he betrayed her hiding place to the Nazis? Director Christian Petzold probes disturbing questions. A Sundance Selects Release. —Tom Tugend

Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict 

Relying on a long-lost interview, Lisa Vreeland’s documentary chronicles the life and passions of this “poor” relation of a super-rich banking family. Peggy Guggenheim, whose father went down with the Titanic, collected and exhibited masters such as Vassily Kandinsky, Salvador Dali, Max Ernst and Jackson Pollock. Guggenheim’s Venice museum, established in 1951, remains among the most significant 20th-century art collections. —Renata Polt 

Rosenwald

In the early decades of the 20th century, when the South’s Jim Crow laws  limited education for black children, Julius Rosenwald, a son of Jewish immigrants who rose to build Sears Roebuck and Co., devoted his wealth to repair the injustice. From 1913 to 1933, Rosenwald launched more than 5,000 schools to educate deprived children. Director Aviva Kempner has documented an inspiring story. —Penny Schwartz