PURPOSE: Citation analysis represents one of the best currently available methods for quantifying the impact of articles. Bibliometric studies list the ''best sellers'' in a single field of interest. The purpose of the present study was to identify and analyze the most frequently cited papers in dry eye research that may be of high interest for researchers and clinicians. METHODS: We reviewed the database of the Institute for Scientific Information to identify articles published from 1900 to September 2016. All dry eye articles published in 59 ophthalmology journals were identified. The top 100 articles were selected for further analysis of authorship, source journal, number of citations, citation rate, geographic origin, article type, and level of evidence. RESULTS: The 100 most-cited articles were published between 1983 and 2011, with most of them in the 2000s. The number of citations per article ranged from 96 to 610, and was greatest for articles published in the 2000s. Each of these articles was published in one of 15 journals. Most articles represented Level-III evidence, followed by Levels II and I. CONCLUSIONS: The present study focusing on dry eye research revealed that 55% of the most-cited articles came from the U.S. and 18% from Japan. Diagnostics and therapy were the areas of focus of most of the clinical articles; 13% of the most cited papers were review articles. This analysis provides researchers and clinicians with a detailed overview on the most cited dry eye papers over the past decades.