I feel the original Star Wars trilogy should be required viewing, or at the very least the first movie. So that whenever you're at a party or something, or god forbide a date or something ... you never run into people that say "Oh, I've never watched it." And then sort of act like its some sort of cultural phenom that other people are into, be it true or not that they haven't seen it or aren't really aware that it exists.
I don't really know if there's some sort of pop culture correlation that equates to it or not. I guess it'd be like randomly talking about Friends or something and then being that person saying, "oh, what's that?" or I suppose I've been in situations where people have asked me about NFL Football and I just give them this blank stare like they are fucking aliens. Or NHL Hockey with certain members of my family, where the expectation is I should know what team is at the top of the division or something.
I suppose for Film buffs it'd be like running into people who don't know who Kubrick is or never watched Pulp Fiction.