diff --git a/crates/polars-core/src/frame/top_k.rs b/crates/polars-core/src/frame/top_k.rs
index 961f54704b55..af3351d79fba 100644
--- a/crates/polars-core/src/frame/top_k.rs
+++ b/crates/polars-core/src/frame/top_k.rs
@@ -1,19 +1,7 @@
-use smartstring::alias::String as SmartString;
-
 use super::*;
 use crate::prelude::sort::arg_bottom_k::_arg_bottom_k;
 
 impl DataFrame {
-    pub fn top_k(
-        &self,
-        k: usize,
-        by_column: impl IntoVec<SmartString>,
-        sort_options: SortMultipleOptions,
-    ) -> PolarsResult<DataFrame> {
-        let by_column = self.select_series(by_column)?;
-        self.bottom_k_impl(k, by_column, sort_options.with_order_reversed())
-    }
-
     pub(crate) fn bottom_k_impl(
         &self,
         k: usize,
diff --git a/crates/polars-lazy/src/frame/mod.rs b/crates/polars-lazy/src/frame/mod.rs
index e9ccc4a6b4b4..5083f2836021 100644
--- a/crates/polars-lazy/src/frame/mod.rs
+++ b/crates/polars-lazy/src/frame/mod.rs
@@ -366,8 +366,11 @@ impl LazyFrame {
         sort_options: SortMultipleOptions,
     ) -> Self {
         // this will optimize to top-k
-        self.sort_by_exprs(by_exprs, sort_options.with_order_reversed())
-            .slice(0, k)
+        self.sort_by_exprs(
+            by_exprs,
+            sort_options.with_order_reversed().with_nulls_last(true),
+        )
+        .slice(0, k)
     }
 
     pub fn bottom_k<E: AsRef<[Expr]>>(
@@ -377,7 +380,8 @@ impl LazyFrame {
         sort_options: SortMultipleOptions,
     ) -> Self {
         // this will optimize to bottom-k
-        self.sort_by_exprs(by_exprs, sort_options).slice(0, k)
+        self.sort_by_exprs(by_exprs, sort_options.with_nulls_last(true))
+            .slice(0, k)
     }
 
     /// Reverse the `DataFrame` from top to bottom.
diff --git a/py-polars/tests/unit/operations/test_top_k.py b/py-polars/tests/unit/operations/test_top_k.py
index bcf406112fc6..debb3e729274 100644
--- a/py-polars/tests/unit/operations/test_top_k.py
+++ b/py-polars/tests/unit/operations/test_top_k.py
@@ -68,8 +68,8 @@ def test_top_k() -> None:
     # dataframe
     df = pl.DataFrame(
         {
-            "a": [1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 2],
-            "b": [3, 2, 1, 4, 3, 2],
+            "a": [1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 2, None],
+            "b": [None, 2, 1, 4, 3, 2, None],
         }
     )
 
@@ -81,7 +81,7 @@ def test_top_k() -> None:
 
     assert_frame_equal(
         df.top_k(3, by=["a", "b"], reverse=True),
-        pl.DataFrame({"a": [1, 2, 2], "b": [3, 2, 2]}),
+        pl.DataFrame({"a": [1, 2, 2], "b": [None, 2, 2]}),
         check_row_order=False,
     )
     assert_frame_equal(