Physical Review Letters (PRL), established in 1958, is a peer-reviewed, scientific journal that is published 52 times per year by the American Physical Society. The journal is considered one of the most prestigious in the field of physics. Over a quarter of Physics Nobel Prize-winning papers between 1995 and 2017 were published in it.

PRL is published both online and as a print journal. Its focus is on short articles ("letters") for a broad readership. The Lead Editor (main science advisor) is Rafael Fernandes. The Chief Editor (responsible for the journal content), is Robert Garisto.

The journal was created in 1958, by Samuel Goudsmit, who was then the editor of Physical Review, the American Physical Society's primary journal. He turned the Letters to the Editor section of Physical Review into a new standalone flagship journal: Physical Review Letters. It was the first journal intended for the rapid publication of short articles, a format that eventually became popular in many other fields.

PRL covers all areas of physics and related topics. The journal is divided into the following sections:

A section before the table of contents highlights a small number of particularly notable articles in each edition.

The following table presents the most recent journal ranking metrics for Physical Review Letters based on data from Scopus and Web of Science categories.

Journal ranking summary (2023)

Physical Review Letters is indexed in the following bibliographic databases: