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As Monstroso mentions, I think my first heavy dose of classical music exposure came through the Warner Bros. cartoons.  I'd hear those pieces, along with a lot of other pop music, Raymond Scott, etc. with no clue where this music came from or who composed it.  It was only later in life that I've been able to piece it together.

At that same time, and perhaps even earlier, my parents were buying me records.  One of them, I believe it was "The Little Fireman," had at least one classical piece, Edvard Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from his work "Peer Gynt."  My father would play the music and narrate a story to me of a young boy who sneaks into the castle of the Mountain King.  While trespassing the boy is discovered and pursued by the angry King.  The King gets closer and closer but the boy finally runs down a long hallway and jumps out a window to safety.

If you are familiar with the piece (and you probably are even if you don't know the name of it) then you know how it starts off slowly, the opening in a sly tone musically creating a portrait of someone sneaking around.  But the piece builds and becomes more frenzied, in keeping with a picture of being discovered and then chased, until it concludes loudly and dramatically, a perfect accompaniment to images of a boy jumping out of a window.  (For some reason, I always conflated this with the Cowardly Lion running down the hallway in Oz and leaping out the window.)

This was so memorable to me that decades later I repeated the experience with my two daughters.

I don't remember classical music being played around my house as a kid other than what I heard on my kid records.  But it must have instilled an interest and love for orchestral works.  I say this because I began to notice music in general at a young age and, in particular, was attracted to film music.  I would hear melodies in movies and remember them.  Of course, movies often "borrowed" classical music.  And just like the Warner Bros. cartoons, movies have often introduced me to classcial pieces I might never have discovered.

Because I never heard film music anywhere outside of a movie theater or record album, I put my purchasing power into soundtrack albums.  Sometimes that would lead to buying certain classical works.  But my classical music knowledge has never come close to what I know about film music.  Even as I've matured and acquired more and more classical music, attended concert seasons, and watched TV broadcasts, I've just never brought my understanding up to the same level.

That said, there are many composers and pieces of music I really like and go back to over and over.  Sam mentioned Howard Hanson, a 20th century composer who I discovered thanks to the movie ALIEN.  Looking at a Wiki list of what they call 20th century classical composers (I need the crutch) I see a lot of names I recognize and have heard but the ones I like are Hovhannes, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Faure, Elgar, Mahler, Debussy, Strauss, Nielsen, Satie, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Rachmaninoff, Ives, Holst, Ravel, Grainger, Stravinksy, Bax, Grofe, Honegger, Orff, Korngold, Gershwin, Copland, Walton, Khatchaturian, Addinsell, Alwyn, Resphigi, Britten, and Kilar.  Some of these folks compose film scores, too. 

Off the top of my head, some favorite pieces of music for me are Brahms' "Hungarian Rhapsodies," Beethoven's 2nd Movement of his "Symphony #7," Grieg's "Peer Gynt," Alan Hovhaness' "Mysterious Mountain."  I like the big guns, medieval, renaissance, and ancient music, too.