Adapted from 19 year-old Matthew Lewis's 1796 anti-clerical Gothic masterpiece, The Monk takes director Dominik Moll into territory previously explored by Luis Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière in a script that written in the 1960s but abandoned through a lack of funding before Greek director Ado Kyrou completed the project, with Franco Nero in the title role, in 1972. Spaniard Francisco Lara Polop subsequently took a stab at the material in 1990, with Paul McGann. But the text keeps eluding its reimaginers and, despite the forbidding Catalan locations and some solid performances, Moll and co-scenarist Anne-Louise Trividic struggle to convey the requisite depravity and despair. Moreover, they also omit such renowned sub-strands as the Wandering Jew doomed to roam until the Second Coming of Christ and the Bleeding Nun who perished because of her sensual sins. Indeed, if anything, this is too tasteful a take on a novel renowned for its sensationalist excess.

In 1595, an infant is left on the steps of a monastery in Madrid and he is taken in by the brothers. As the years, pass, Ambrosio (Vincent Cassel) develops a fierce vocation and the intensity of his inspirational preaching soon acquires him a formidable reputation. Antonia (Joséphine Japy) is particularly taken by his words. But local swain Lorenzo (Frédéric Noaille) is equally taken with her when he sees her at church. He is keen to pay court to her, but her mother, Elvire (Catherine Mouchet), disapproves of cross-class relationships, as she was cruelly betrayed by a nobleman in her youth.

Ambrosio's fame also attracts the attention of a debauched merchant (Sergi López), whose relish in confessing his sins intrigues the monk, and Matilda (Déborah François), who disguises herself as a man named Valerio who has to wear a mask and cowl at all times to hide the hideous facial disfigurement caused by the fire that killed his family. Troubled by headaches and an ominous vision of a woman in red, Ambrosio takes pity on the youth and allows him to become his assistant. However, shortly after he informs the strict abbess (Geraldine Chaplin) of the nearby convent that Sister Agnes (Roxane Duran) is with child and plans to elope with her lover, Ambrosio is discovers Matilda's true identity. He intends sending her away, but is bitten by a serpent and, in the course of removing the poison and nursing him, Matilda succeeds in seducing him.

Having succumbed to temptation, Ambrosio discovers that he enjoys the sensation and vows to possess Antonia. Despite being aware that this will hasten her rejection, Matilda (who is really a satanic succubus) offers to help Ambrosio vanquish Antonia and he concludes a pact with the Devil in order to fulfil his lusts. His chance comes when Elvire falls ill and Antonia asks Ambrosio to be her confessor. However, she recovers and catches the monk attempting to rape her daughter. Stricken by a mix of fury and terror, Ambrosio kills Elvire and returns to the monastery to wrestle with his conscience and his lust. But, with the Inquisition closing in and Lorenzo desirous of revenge for the shameful persecution and death of his sister Agnes, his fate appears to be sealed.

As he proved with Harry, He's Here to Help (2000) and Lemming (2005), Moll has a knack of finding evil lurking in the everyday. However, he strangely struggles to exploit the malevolence seething through every page of Lewis's once-scurrilous text. He hardly helps himself by rather quaintly bookending scenes with old-fashioned irises, which suggest that Moll is aware that the material has dated and that religious hypocrisy is no longer the racy subject it once was. But Antxon Gomez's production design is suitably lowering, while cinematographer Patrick Blossier makes atmospheric contrasts between the sepulchral interiors and the scorching wastes of the world beyond the monastery walls.

The ensemble can't be faulted, with François relishing her vampish duplicity and Chaplin catching the pious severity seen in so many portraits of Counter Reformation nuns. Cassel ably switches the focus of his passions from the celestial to the corporeal with a palpable sense of revelation. Moreover, he also nails the awful desire to express remorse and experience forgiveness while still wishing to indulge in the peccadilloes damning his soul. But Moll's narrowed focus saps much of the book's chilling bleakness and fails to make the connection to a largely secular world where the sexual inconstancy of the clergy is old news.

Despite the best intentions, Sacha Bennett's Outside Bet feels equally passé. Adapted from Mark Baxter and Paolo Hewitt's novel, The Mumper, this amiable horse-racing comedy couldn't have been released at a more inopportune time, given the recent cancellation by HBO of the Dustin Hoffman gambling series Luck and the death of two contenders at the Aintree Grand National. Bennett deserves credit for attempting to change tack after the crime thrillers Tue£sday (2008) and Bonded By Blood (2010). But this bid to relocate the Ealing spirit to mid-80s Camberwell is something of a non-starter.

Even though he's now in his twenties, Calum MacNab still dotes on his dad. A flashback shows Phil Davis crooning `Pick Yourself Up' in a working-men's club and generally being the life and soul of every party. But he also had a weakness for the gee-gees and taught MacNab everything he knows about form and laying odds. However, wife Jenny Agutter threatened to leave Davis on discovering he has been betting when he claimed to have been taking his son to swimming lessons. So he is now a reformed character and spends much of his time drinking in the local boozer with his mates Bob Hoskins, Dudley Sutton, Adam Deacon, Terry Stone.

Having followed his father into the print trade, MacNab and buddy Jason Maza are also regulars and just happen to be sitting in the corner minding their own business when a complete stranger comes in and asks if anyone wants to buy a horse. Undeterred by the general scoffing, MacNab and Davis are intrigued and the former heads off to the gallops to meet with Perry Benson, who is keen to offload a thoroughbred after a run in with some travelling folk. MacNab recognises a winner when he sees one. But he would need to convince everyone in the pub, including barmaid Emily Atack, if he is to form a syndicate with the dosh to meet Benson's asking price.

As this is an unashamedly sentimental comedy, fate naturally takes a hand and strikes Davis down with cancer so that his pals can come to the conclusion that pooling resources they can't spare to take a punt on an untried nag named The Mumper is the best way to sustain his spirits. Of course, being good old-fashioned Cockney chauvinists, they also fail to inform their wives and girlfriends what they plan to do with hard-earned nest eggs that may just be about to come in handy as the Thatcherite bosses are preparing to clamp down on the unions.

MacNab has the first inkling that something bad is about to happen, as he is sleeping with Kate Magowan, a semi-posh journalist who was promoted to management level after a spell in Australia. But he soon realises where he stands in the class war when a colleague blows the whistle on some decidedly dodgy work practices and the picket lines are manned before the ink is dry on the redundancy notices.

Hoskins appears on the news, only for his treasonous Communist past to be exposed and the mood worsens when The Mumper is soundly beaten in its debut race. MacNab tells Davis that it won, but he's not easily fooled and knows that his Christmas Eve drink with the lads will be his last. MacNab speaks movingly about his dad's never say die attitude and he decides not only to entrust The Mumper to Irish trainer Vincent Regan (even though he has a crush on Atack), but also to invest all his severance pay on a race in honour of Davis at Sandown.

By now, Agutter is aware of what's going on and follows Rita Tushingham and Linda Robson (Mrs Hoskins and Sutton respectively) in letting the boys have some fun while they still can. Thus, she dresses up for a day at the races, during which Maza reveals stripper lover Rebecca Ferdinando, while Deacon tells Stone he knows about his affair with wife Montserrat Lombard and advises him to stick in future with clingy girlfriend Lucy Drive. But, while the various romantic entanglements are surprisingly easily sorted out, the outcome of the big race proves less easy to settle.

Feeling like a cross between Fred Schepisi's Last Orders (2001) and Dexter Fletcher's Wild Bill (2011), this is a film that is so desperate to recapture the mood and mores of a bygone style that it almost entirely eschews originality, while also completely missing the tone of the time frame it is striving to recreate. This was an era of disenchantment and anger, as trades for life were decimated and the communities on which they were built began to fragment. But the protesting printers depicted here can barely boo a scab let alone wade in with the flying pickets.

They're decent blokes with salt of the earth spouses. But each and every one is a cipher, whether it's bolshy Bob with his dodgy eyesight, dozy Dudley and his infuriatingly overused catchphrase, shoe-obsessedd Adam and lusty Terry and their immature attitude to relationships and callow Calum and his reluctance to let go of the straps of his dad's messenger bag and commit to the enamoured Emily, who is the archetypal blonde next door who is really one of the lads.

The performances are fine, if a touch twee. But the writing is flat and the pacing of the action often funereal. Even the galloping finale is taken at a gentle canter and its result is as predictable as the pop songs on the soundtrack. Yet, for all its lack of dramatic edge or comic novelty, this is likeable enough. And it's never a chore to watch the likes of Hoskins, Davis, Agutter and Tushingham.

Something of a cult has grown up around Buck Brannaman. A model for the character of Tom Booker in Nicholas Evans's novel The Horse Whisperer, he was a special adviser on Robert Redford's 1998 film adaptation and he explains in the course of Cindy Meehl's debut feature how Brannaman saved a key scene with the traumatised Pilgrim by disregarding the golden rules of Hollywood wrangling to coax his own mount into nuzzling Scarlett Johansson on cue. Such affinity with these most noble and gentle of creatures typifies Brannaman's approach to the art of natural horsemanship. Yet, while she ably reveals in Buck how he helps horses with people problems, Meehl struggles to breach the defences of this reserved and supremely controlled man and, consequently, she leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

Born in 1962 and raised predominantly in Idaho and Montana, Dan Brannaman and his older brother Bill were known as Buckshot and Smokie in the rope-tricking act devised by their martinet father Ace. Starting out in local rodeos, they landed a Sugar Pops commercial and appeared on the popular panel show, What's My Line? However, when their doting mother Carol died, Ace became increasingly abusive and the boys were eventually taken away by Sheriff Johnny France and placed in the care of foster parents Forrest and Betsy Shirley. Forrest taught Buck to make fences and Betsy remains a constant source of support, alongside Buck's wife Mary and their teenage daughter Reata, who often accompanies him on summer road trips with her best friend Nevada Wyatt.

But no mention is made of the adult Smokie and his absence preys on the mind as Buck recalls in his folksy Will Rogers-cum-Gary Cooper drawl how he became entranced by horse trainer Ray Hunt (who had himself been influenced by brothers Dan and Bill Dorrance) and gradually learned the alternative method of `starting' rather than `breaking' colts that he now spends two-thirds of the year teaching in four-day courses the length and breadth of America. Ranch owners Gary Myers and Betty Shaley, trainer Annette Venteicher and students Bibb Frazier, Britt Long and Paige Morris readily testify that Bannamann is the best at what he does. But, by ignoring the plentiful competition, Meehl somewhat disingenuously invests Buck with an unmerited uniqueness that he does little to dispel.

It's clear from watching Brannaman work that he is a calm and witty teacher, who has a delightful rapport with horses whose behavioural problems often stem from fears that he recognises from his childhood. His manner is always genial, but he can tell home truths when required and Julie Hueftle is told in no uncertain terms at a class run by Tina Cornish and Dan Gunther in Chico, California that while the dangerous unpredictability of three year-old Kelly probably derives from oxygen deprivation at his birth, his predatory instincts have been exacerbated by her reckless decision to raise over 25 studs alone. The quiet firmness with which he informs her that Kelly's psychological flaws reflect her own is devastating and reveals a glint of the steel that lies beneath the velvet.

The scenes of Buck with Mary, Reata and their dogs are touching, but scrupulously avoid digging too deeply into the inevitable impact of 40-week annual absences. Similarly, little attempt is made to gauge what kind of man Brannaman is away from his métier. Thus, while this is an often charming documentary, with Guy Mossman and Luke Geissbühler's digital vistas being as evocative as David Robbins's pastichey score, it rather betrays Meehl's origins as a fashion designer, as there is clearly more to discover her beneath the placid surface.

Kevin Clash's right hand controls one of the most recognisable puppets in the world. But few would know the man behind the Sesame Street legend, so Constance Marks seeks to put this right in Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey. In truth, the verb in the title should really be `Becoming', as this is less about the perpetually three year-old, red-furred creature who has delighted children worldwide for over two decades than about how an African-American boy fulfilled his dream.

Growing up in a middle-class Baltimore neighbourhood, Clash was obsessed with TV shows like Captain Kangaroo and Sesame Street and began making his own puppets to give backyard shows to the local kids. Parents George and Gladys encouraged him to the point that his father overlooked him destroying an expensive coat to create a monkey puppet. But siblings George, Jr., Anita and Pam admit to being a touch resentful at his preferential treatment and he was teased at school by boys who thought he should have been playing sports instead of fooling around with dolls.

But Clash's talent caught the eye of a Baltimore TV producer and he worked with John Zieman on the WMAR show Caboose before getting to meet Kermit Love (who was Jim Henson's chief Muppet designer) on a school trip to New York that resulted in him handling the Cookie Monster on the Muppet Movie float in the 1979 Macy's Thanksgiving parade. Learning all he could about the making and manipulating of the characters who were about to become international superstars through The Muppet Show, Clash decided to take his chance in the big city and was soon working with childhood hero Bob Keeshan on Captain Kangaroo and with Kermit Love on The Great Space Coaster. Indeed, he was so busy that he turned down a chance to work on Henson's ambitious feature, The Dark Crystal (1982).

However, by the time Henson put Labyrinth (1986) into production, Clash was free and found himself entrusted with the `snake eyes' dance routine. He got on well with the Muppet Master and was hired for Sesame Street, where he created such characters as Hoots the Owl, Ferlinghetti Donizetti and Dr. Nobel Price before being given the chance to reinvent Elmo after veteran muppeteer Richard Hunt lost patience with him in 1984.

The rest is more the stuff of fairytales than history. The taciturn Clash suddenly found his voice. Moreover, by taking his inspiration for Elmo's loving personality from his parents, he won the hearts of children everywhere, who responded to eager furball's need to demonstrate and receive affection through hugging. The instantaneous transformation was little short of phenomenal, with Rosie O'Donnell and Whoopi Goldberg (who also narrates) recalling the panic buying of Hug Me Elmo toys and fellow operators Frank Oz, Fran Brill, Bill Barretta, Caroll Spinney and Martin P. Robinson generously saying how much Clash deserved his success.

Following the death of Jim Henson, Clash became part of the Sesame Street backroom furniture and a casual shot of the nine Emmys on his sideboard testify to the enduring popularity of his work as Elmo. But, despite having access to Clash for six years, Constance Marks provides disappointingly few insights into the show and, apart from footage of some school visits and a meeting with a dying Make a Wish child, she also fails to capture the appeal of this adorable puppet. Similarly, she struggles to discover what it is about puppetry that allows this taciturn man to express himself so easily, while she also skirts around the thornier issues of a private life that has clearly been compromised by workaholism. Clash wishes he had devoted more time to his daughter Shannon, but no real attempt is made to discuss why he seems to have always found it easier to give love through a puppet than through his own persona.

Criticising a film about Elmo and his re-creator feels like committing some kind of atrocity against humanity. But, while this is a breezily sincere profile that has unearthed some fascinating archive material and capably juxtaposes the joyous and the poignant, it always feels rather like the documentary equivalent of a puppet performance, as Clash has only really allowed us to see what he is prepared to show.