Usually, the term “new wave” indicates the emergence of a generation of artists that upends convention and redefines the rules of the game — whether it’s cinema, pop music, design, or jazz. But a retrospective of Polish New Wave films, unspooling this week at Anthology Film Archives, suggests otherwise. Billed as “A History of the Phenomenon That Never Existed,” its offerings cover a wide range of efforts produced between 1964 and 2006.

The contention here is that the films included were too experimental to connect with a popular Polish audience, yet neither did they easily slot into the contemporary art scene of their respective decades. They constituted more of an idea than a movement, “an ahistorical, multi-periodical phenomenon” through which a collection of films could be assorted.

The 14 titles to be screened between today and Sunday include the 2006 “Summer Love,” advertised as the first Polish Western and starring Val Kilmer, of all people, in an allegorical spin on Hollywood genre films. But those with an interest in film history will likely focus on an extensive program of short subjects and note the work of at least one well-known filmmaker and a pair of important ones who have drifted into obscurity. Zbigniew Rybczynski, an Oscar winner and rock-video innovator, is represented by an early piece, “New Book,” a 10-minute exercise in multi-paneled narrative. The director divides the screen into nine sections, like a Tic-Tac-Toe game, then depicts a simultaneous story in which various characters leap from frame to frame, going through the motions of a workaday life in a nondescript urban environment. It looks trite now, but the short has a playful, silent-movie quality that transcends even apparent tragedy, and an aura of mordant humor that seems part and parcel of life in the old Eastern Bloc. Mr. Rybczynski enjoys a higher profile for helming Art of Noise videos than for his cinematic work, but this selection offers a window into both vocations.

The all-too-neglected director Jerzy Skolimowski gets a rare screening with his seminal “Identification Marks: None (Rysopis),” the 1964 film that often is cited as the square root of the Polish New Wave. Best known for penning the screenplay for Roman Polanski’s “Knife in the Water,” the writer-actor-director was most recently seen as a crusty Russian expatriate in David Cronenberg’s “Eastern Promises.” Mr. Skolimowski was part of a radical breed of young filmmakers coming out of the Lódz Film School. It was during his stint there that Mr. Skolimowski shot “Identificaton Marks,” a landmark of 1960s youthful alienation and disaffection that preceded its maker’s exile at the end of the decade.

Also obscured is Krzysztof Zanussi, whose films always drew attention for their intersections of hard science and Catholic faith. Mr. Zanussi’s “The Illumination” (1973) follows a physics student’s rites of passage amid frequently juxtaposed expositions on metaphysics and scientific formula. Visually striking and unafraid of abrupt edits, the film is at once abstract and mundane as its protagonist seeks to reconcile the glory of the stars with the everyday horrors of life.

Not everything in the series is so high-minded. Though much is lost in translation, “The Hydro-Riddle” is an unlikely social comedy in which a middle-aged Warsaw office worker turns superhero to replenish the city’s water supply during a summer scorcher. The 1970 film seems to parody Communist Party ineptitude while striking a blow for the common man — sort of Austin Powers gone Solidarity.