Most websites (IMDb, Wikipedia, Rotten Tomatoes, Letterboxd, etc.) use the premiere of a movie as its release year. Trakt uses the theatrical release, which is usually but not always the same year. For example, The Standoff at Sparrow Creek is considered a 2018 film by all of the sites I mentioned, but Trakt considers it a 2019 film. This can cause confusion, as the release year is typically used to identify different movies with the same name.

TMDb uses the theatrical release date for the main year display on its website, but it has both pieces of information available in its API. Letterboxd for example uses TMDb for data but uses the premiere date. Trakt should do the same.