Once in a while you come across a paper that is so good you think everyone, or at least every physicist, should read it, regardless of whether one is working on something closely-related. Below, there is a list of such papers that I will continuously update. This list can never be complete, of course, and simply consists of the papers I have stumbled upon and have read after having the idea to make this list, and that, in my opinion, satisfy the criterion to be on it.
J.S. Bell - On the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox
B.I. Halperin and P.C. Hohenberg - Hydrodynamic Theory of Spin Waves
J.H. Hannay - Angle variable holonomy in adiabatic excursion of an integrable Hamiltonian
J.M. Luttinger - Theory of Thermal Transport Coefficients
N. D. Mermin - The topological theory of defects in ordered media