I think it depends on the method for the loop, and how time itself plays into the plot.

Like, I wouldn’t say Groundhog’s Day is a time travel story. But Deathloop (the game) is a time travel story. The main reason for this is that Deathloop explicitly tells you that the loop is caused by a time machine device, where as Groundhog’s Day could be interpreted as Bill Murray having died and is now in Hell or Limbo.

The way you escape the loop in Deathloop is to get all the looping people to die and then destroy the machine. In Murray’s situation in Groundhog’s Day, the solution is to… Be a better person?

The premise of time travel movies is a person being able to be present at a different time to their original timeline. So I guess you could say a Groundhog Day type of movie is a subgenre of the time travel genre.

I say yes. It’s one of my favorite genres (if you can call it one) and definitely includes loop-based plots like Groundhog Day and Primer. But I also enjoy the Terminator Series and Back to the Future and others that don’t really loop that way. I suspect most fans are similar. It’s hard to imagine enjoying one premise but not the other.

Also: https://xkcd.com/657/

I say no.

Time travel stories are about going to a different time.
Time loop stories are repeating the same time.
It’s really that simple.

Time loops are anti-time travel really, as there’s no movement in time at all.

Here’s one: where do you put things like The Long Earth where it’s not time you step through per-se, but all the possible futures starting from the beginning of the universe?

I really want to see someone make that series into a movie.

I mean, time-travel stories typically involve traveling by way of some mechanism be it a spell, wormhole, tear in spacetime and etc. The end goal is usually traveling from one point to another with a purpose. Characters can travel back and forth. Everyone usually remembers each encounter.

Time-loops, like in Groundhog’s Day or Edge of Tomorrow, usually cause people to get “stuck.” Some plot device is then introduced to eventually “unstick” them. Only the people stuck in the loop are usually aware that anything is happening.

The question is whether a time loop is a form of time travel.

Are they actually going back in time? Or is time itself looping back on itself? These aren’t the same cause, though the effects can look the same

So I suppose, conventionally, it can be thought of as a subform of time travel. But from a technical perspective, it may or may not be