Background The quality of postoperative sleep is vital for surgical patients. A large number of patients after surgery suffer from sleep disorders. There are plenty of studies on postoperative sleep disorders. The aim of this study is to do a bibliometric analysis of the top-100 cited articles on postoperative sleep during the last 10 years, providing some clues to the investigators. Methods Publication retrieval was conducted in Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection on 12 January 2024. The 100 most frequently cited articles on postoperative sleep were identified and analyzed by VOSviewer and Excel. We mainly analyzed the publication year, citations, usage count, author, institution, country/region, journal and keywords. Results The number of citations ranged from 20 to 124 in WoS Core Collection, with a median of 35 and a mean of 40.79. USA (n = 39), China (n = 22) and Canada (n=9) ranked top three in terms of the number of publications and citations. Univ Copenhagen, Univ Toronto, and Lundbeck Ctr Fast Track Hip & Knee Arthroplasty were the top three institutions leading the researches on postoperative sleep. The journals specialized in Anesthesiology recorded the most high-quality articles. Postoperative pain, sleep, sleep quality, quality of life and postoperative delirium were the highly used keywords, while general anesthesia, fatigue, cognitive impairment and postoperative cognitive dysfunction were the latest topics. Conclusion At present, postoperative sleep researches have focused on the impacts of postoperative sleep disorders and pharmacological therapies to postoperative sleep disorders. However, non-pharmacological management of postoperative sleep should be paid more attention in the future.