For just getting started I recommend collections:

1. Ideas That Created The Future[1]. It's a collection of fiftyish classic CS papers, with some commentary.

2. Wikipedia's list[2].

3. Test of Time awards[3]. These are papers that have been around for a while and people still think are important.

4. Best paper awards[4]. Less useful than ToT as not every best paper is actually that good or important, and sometimes the award committees can't see past names or brands for novel research.

5. Survey Journals[5]. Students often get their research started with a literature review and some go the extra step to collect dozens of papers into a summary paper. I subscribe to the RSS feed for that one, and usually one or two are interesting enough to read.

6. Citation mining -- As you read all these, consider their citation list as potential new reading material, or if an old paper leaves you wanting more, use Google Scholar to find a papers that cited what you just read.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Ideas-That-Created-Future-Computer/dp...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_important_publications...

[3]: https://www.usenix.org/conferences/test-of-time-awards

[4]: https://jeffhuang.com/best_paper_awards/

[5]: https://dl.acm.org/journal/csur

Ideas That Created the Future: Classic Papers of Computer Science

Each paper is often over my head. There is an introduction to each that helps explain the paper and its context. A great journey through time.

https://www.amazon.com/Ideas-That-Created-Future-Computer/dp...