I realized after I posted that abandoning the plex auto-format was the right way to go, but I would have never guessed ny.colon(' - ') was the shorthand for the file and year.

On a side note, I've noticed that the GUI seems to require the use of $xxx as the operator, but most of the forum examples ...

I have a set of folders with movie files I'd like to rename

x:/movies/movie 1 title (year)
Movie 1 *garbage info*.avi
Poster.jpg
Banner.jpg
Picture of my dog who loved this movie.jpg
x:/movies/movie 2 title (year)
Movie 2 *garbage info*.avi
Poster.jpg
Banner.jpg
Picture of my cat who loved ...