Top Ophthalmology journals
The leading journals in ophthalmology, ranked within their own field — not across all of science. The measure is computed from open data; how it works, and its limits, are set out in our method.
Scope: Ophthalmology (NLM Broad Subject Terms).
Grouped by quality band, best first, and listed alphabetically within each band — the bands are the ranking; we do not order named journals against one another.
Top 5%
6
- American journal of ophthalmology
- Annual review of vision science
- Ophthalmology
- Progress in retinal and eye research
- Survey of ophthalmology
- The ocular surface
Top 10%
4
- Current opinion in ophthalmology
- Investigative ophthalmology & visual science
- Ophthalmology. Retina
- The British journal of ophthalmology
Top 25%
13
- Acta ophthalmologica
- Asia-Pacific journal of ophthalmology
- BMJ open ophthalmology
- Clinical & experimental ophthalmology
- Contact lens & anterior eye : the journal of the British Contact Lens Association
- Experimental eye research
- Eye
- Graefe's archive for clinical and experimental ophthalmology = Albrecht von Graefes Archiv für klinische und experimentelle Ophthalmologie
- JAMA ophthalmology
- Journal of refractive surgery
- Ophthalmic & physiological optics : the journal of the British College of Ophthalmic Opticians (Optometrists)
- Ophthalmologica. Journal international d'ophtalmologie. International journal of ophthalmology. Zeitschrift für Augenheilkunde
- Ophthalmology. Glaucoma
Top 50%
21
- BMC ophthalmology
- Clinical & experimental optometry
- Cornea
- Current eye research
- Digital journal of ophthalmology : DJO
- Eye & contact lens
- Indian journal of ophthalmology
- Japanese journal of ophthalmology
- Journal of cataract and refractive surgery
- Journal of glaucoma
- Journal of optometry
- Journal of vision
- Ocular immunology and inflammation
- Oftalmologicheskiĭ zhurnal
- Ophthalmic research
- Optics letters
- Optometry and vision science : official publication of the American Academy of Optometry
- Retina
- Seminars in ophthalmology
- Strabismus
- Vision research
Unranked
31
- Archivos de la Sociedad Española de Oftalmología
- Archivos de la Sociedad Española de Oftalmología
- Arquivos brasileiros de oftalmologia
- Canadian journal of ophthalmology. Journal canadien d'ophtalmologie
- Ceská a slovenská oftalmologie : casopis Ceské oftalmologické spolecnosti a Slovenské oftalmologické spolecnosti
- Der Ophthalmologe : Zeitschrift der Deutschen Ophthalmologischen Gesellschaft
- Die Ophthalmologie
- Documenta ophthalmologica. Advances in ophthalmology
- European journal of ophthalmology
- International ophthalmology
- International ophthalmology clinics
- Journal français d'ophtalmologie
- Journal of AAPOS : the official publication of the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus
- Journal of neuro-ophthalmology : the official journal of the North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society
- Journal of pediatric ophthalmology and strabismus
- Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision
- Klinika oczna
- Klinische Monatsblätter für Augenheilkunde
- Korean journal of ophthalmology : KJO
- Middle East African journal of ophthalmology
- Nepalese journal of ophthalmology : a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal of the Nepal Ophthalmic Society : NEPJOPH
- Ophthalmic plastic and reconstructive surgery
- Ophthalmic surgery, lasers & imaging retina
- Orbit
- Retinal cases & brief reports
- Revista brasileira de oftalmologia
- Romanian journal of ophthalmology
- Turkish journal of ophthalmology
- Vestnik oftalmologii
- Veterinary ophthalmology
- Visual neuroscience
75 ranked journals. Computed 2026-09-04, citation window 2019–2022. Journals too new or too small to rank fairly are not listed — “unranked” is not a zero.
Questions
- Are optometry and vision-science journals included?
- Only those the NLM files under Ophthalmology. Basic vision science and optometry can fall under neighbouring disciplines with their own lists; a journal is ranked in its home field.
- Does a higher band mean a better journal for every sub-specialty?
- Not necessarily. The bands measure citation reach across ophthalmology as a whole, so a strong retina or glaucoma journal may sit below the broad flagships. It is a starting point, not the last word for a niche.
- How current is this ranking?
- It is recomputed about once a year over a multi-year citation window, and the calculation date is shown beneath the list. Recent, fast-moving work may not yet be reflected in citation counts.
Spotted an error?
If a journal looks misclassified — the wrong discipline, a missing title, a band that seems off — please tell us at [email protected]. Every report gets an answer, and a confirmed error is corrected at the latest when the ranking is next recomputed.
What this is not
- This ranks journals, not individual articles: it says nothing about the validity of any single paper.
- It is not medical advice and no substitute for clinical judgement or reading the work itself.
- The ranking is factual and method-based, computed the same way for every title. Like any method that ranks journals, though, it carries bias and is not a definitive judgement on a journal's quality or relevance — neither an endorsement nor a criticism of any journal or publisher.
See also the Ophthalmology literature digest — a daily email of new ophthalmology articles, filtered by these same quality bands.