Plot device
Time loop
A device in which a character relives the same stretch of time repeatedly until some condition is met or lesson learned.
Time loop in fiction: 7 works
The protagonist is trapped in a closed causal loop that generates his entire existence.
The soldier sent back becomes the father of the future leader he was sent to protect's cause.
Phil relives the same day endlessly until he becomes a better person, the film's core device.
The protagonist is caught in a fixed loop whose ending he witnessed as a child.
Overlapping trips create branching, doubled timelines the characters struggle to track.
A looper confronting his older self ties the plot into a self-referential loop.
Characters repeatedly reset timelines from remembered moments, looping to avert catastrophe.