The 1972 Annual World's Best SF is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha, the initial volume in a series of nineteen.

It was one of two follow-up volumes to the previous year's World's Best Science Fiction: 1971 edited by Wollheim and Terry Carr for Ace Books, the other being Carr's The Best Science Fiction of the Year.

The Wollheim/Saha title was first published in paperback by DAW Books in May 1972, followed by a hardcover edition issued in July of the same year by the same publisher as a selection of the Science Fiction Book Club.

The paperback edition was reissued by DAW in December 1977 under the variant title Wollheim's World's Best SF: Series One, this time with cover art by John Berkey.

The book collects fourteen novelettes and short stories by various science fiction authors, with an introduction by Wollheim.