Here are some of my favourite mathematical texts. The list is always expanding.
Things could be missing.
What journal does not matter, as long as it is cool.
No flattery to living mathematicians.
Reasons for there varies: clear presentation/started a whole new field/ingeneous methods...
Akbulut, S., 1991. A fake compact contractible 4-manifold. Journal of Differential Geometry, 33(2), pp.335-356.
Akbulut, S. and Matveyev, R., 1997. Exotic structures and adjunction inequality. Turkish Journal of Mathematics, 21(1), pp.47-53.
Atiyah, M., Bott, R. and Patodi, V.K., 1973. On the Heat Equation and the Index Theorem. Inventiones Mathematicae, 20, pp.279-330.
Atiyah, M.F., Patodi, V.K. and Singer, I.M., 1975, January. Spectral asymmetry and Riemannian geometry. I. In Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society (Vol. 77, No. 1, pp. 43-69). Cambridge University Press.
Atiyah, M.F. and Singer, I.M., 1968. The index of elliptic operators: I. Annals of Mathematics, 87(3), pp.484-530.
Atiyah, M.F. and Singer, I.M., 1968. The index of elliptic operators: III. Annals of Mathematics, 87(3), pp.546-604.
Bar-Natan, D., 2002. On Khovanov’s categorification of the Jones polynomial. Algebraic & Geometric Topology, 2(1), pp.337-370.
Bauer, S. and Furuta, M., 2004. A stable cohomotopy refinement of Seiberg-Witten invariants: I. Inventiones mathematicae, 155(1), pp.1-19.
Casson, A. and Gordon, C., 1986. Cobordism of classical knots,A la recherche de la topologie perdue. Progress in Mathematics, 62.
Dai, I., Hedden, M. and Mallick, A., 2022. Corks, involutions, and Heegaard Floer homology. Journal of the European Mathematical Society, 25(6), pp.2319-2389.
Dai, I., Hom, J., Stoffregen, M. and Truong, L., 2023. An infinite-rank summand of the homology cobordism group. Duke Mathematical Journal, 172(12), pp.2365-2432.
Donaldson, S.K., 1983. An application of gauge theory to four-dimensional topology. Journal of Differential Geometry, 18(2), pp.279-315.
Donaldson, S.K., 1990. Polynomial invariants for smooth four-manifolds. Topology, 29(3), pp.257-315.
Etnyre, J.B. and Honda, K., 2001. On the nonexistence of tight contact structures. Annals of Mathematics, pp.749-766.
Etnyre, J.B. and Honda, K., 2002. Tight contact structures with no symplectic fillings. Inventiones Mathematicae, 148(3), pp.609-626.
Fintushel, R. and Stern, R.J., 1985. Pseudofree orbifolds. Annals of Mathematics, 122(2), pp.335-364.
Fintushel, R. and Stern, R.J., 1992. Integer graded instanton homology groups for homology three spheres. Topology, 31(3), pp.589-604.
Fintushel, R. and Stern, R.J., 1997. Rational blowdowns of smooth 4-manifolds. Journal of Differential Geometry, 46(2), pp.181-235.
Fintushel, R. and Stern, R.J., 1998. Knots, links, and 4-manifolds. Inventiones Mathematicae, 134(2), p.363.
Furuta, M., 2001. Monopole equation and the 11/8-conjecture. Mathematical Research Letters, 8(3), pp.279-291.
Gompf, R.E., 1998. Handlebody construction of Stein surfaces. Annals of mathematics, pp.619-693.
Giroux, E., 1991. Convexity in contact topology. Commentarii Mathematici Helvetici, 66(4), pp.637-677.
Hedden, M. and Kirk, P., 2012. Instantons, concordance, and Whitehead doubling. Journal of Differential Geometry, 91(2), pp.281-319.
Hendricks, K. and Manolescu, C., 2017. Involutive Heegaard Floer homology. Duke Mathematical Journal, 166(7), pp.1211-1299.
Honda, K., 2000. On the classification of tight contact structures I. Geometry & Topology, 4(1), pp.309-368.
Honda, K., Kazez, W.H. and Matić, G., 2007. Right-veering diffeomorphisms of compact surfaces with boundary. Inventiones mathematicae, 169(2), pp.427-449.
Honda, K., Kazez, W.H. and Matić, G., 2009. On the contact class in Heegaard Floer homology. Journal of Differential Geometry, 83(2), pp.289-311.
Kronheimer, P.B. and Mrowka, T.S., 1994. The genus of embedded surfaces in the projective plane. Math. Res. Lett, 1(6), pp.797-808.
Manolescu, C., 2014. On the intersection forms of spin four-manifolds with boundary. Mathematische Annalen, 359(3), pp.695-728.
Manolescu, C., 2016. Pin (2)-equivariant Seiberg-Witten Floer homology and the triangulation conjecture. Journal of the American Mathematical Society, 29(1), pp.147-176.
Milnor, J., 1956. On Manifolds Homeomorphic to the 7-Sphere. Annals of Mathematics, 64(2), pp.399-405.
Montesinos, J.M., 1975. Surgery on links and double branched covers of S^3. Knots, Groups, and 3-manifolds: Papers Dedicated to the Memory of RH Fox, (84), p.227.
Nozaki, Y., Sato, K. and Taniguchi, M., 2023. Filtered instanton Floer homology and the homology cobordism group. Journal of the European Mathematical Society.
Ozsváth, P. and Szabó, Z., 2000. The symplectic Thom conjecture. Annals of Mathematics, pp.93-124.
Ozsváth, P. and Szabó, Z., 2003. On the Floer homology of plumbed three-manifolds. Geometry & Topology, 7(1), pp.185-224.
Ozsváth, P. and Szabó, Z., 2005. Heegaard Floer homology and contact structures. Duke Mathematical Journal, 129(1), pp.39-61.
Rasmussen, J., 2010. Khovanov homology and the slice genus. Inventiones Mathematicae, 182(2), pp.419-447.
Thom, R., 1954. Quelques propriétés globales des variétés différentiables. Commentarii Mathematici Helvetici, 28(1), pp.17-86.
Uhlenbeck, K.K., 1982. Connections with Lp bounds on curvature. Communications in Mathematical Physics, 83(1), pp.31-42.