I'm also Gen X (born 1970) but have only seen about half of these films.

Definitely agreed on Poltergeist, The Day After, and The Empire Strikes Back. On the subject of nuclear war, if you're prepared to be really traumatized, the 1984 British film Threads makes The Day After look like the Teletubbies. (I didn't watch Threads until just a couple of years ago; definitely not suitable for young children.)

I think I watched The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe some years after it came out, because I had read the book by then and knew what to expect; this TV movie was much more true to the story than later adaptations. I (an atheist with a secular Jewish upbringing) didn't get that it was a Biblical allegory at the time. So the violence was true to the source material!