r"
^
# get the title of this movie or series
(?P<title>
[-\w'\"]+
# match separator to later replace into correct title
(?P<separator> [ .] )
# note this *must* be lazy for the engine to work ltr not rtl
(?: [-\w'\"]+\2 )*?
)
# start of movie vs serie check
(?:
# if this is an episode, lets match the season
# number one way or another. if not, the year
# of the movie
(?:
# series. can be a lot prettier if we used perl regex...
# make sure this is not just a number in the title followed by our separator.
# like, iron man 3 2013 or my.fictional.24.series
(?! \d+ \2 )
# now try to match the season number
(?: s (?: eason \2? )? )?
(?P<season> \d\d? )
# needed to validate the last token is a dot, or whatever.
(?: e\d\d? (?:-e?\d\d?)? | x\d\d? )? |
# this is likely a movie, match the year
(?P<year> [(\]]?\d{4}[)\]]? )
)
# make sure this ends with the separator, otherwise we
# might be in the middle