After finishing Stranger Things, I'm happy to say they stuck the landing. Even without the nostalgia, the series still stood on its own for characters you connected to along with exciting action sequences. But man, the nostalgia... in addition to big names like Alien and others previously listed, it brought back memories of movies I haven't even thought about in 3 decades, like Scanners, Altered States and From Beyond. I'm looking forward to reading a thorough breakdown of all the homages.
Trivia - the creators, the Duffer bros, are from Durham.