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The number of readings which are essential to philosophy is vast. Many people here have
already pointed out some conventional basics, such as Plato and Russell, and mentioned
many others. However, there's a general problem to the "greatest hits" approach in any
study, and even more so in philosophy: what do you want out of such a list?
First of all, there's a bit of a divide in the kind of philosophy people mean when they use the
word. On one reading, an "essential" work of philosophy would be theBhagavad Vita; on
another, Plato's Republic; on yet a third, Herman Hesse'sSiddhartha. Even those who pick
Plato's middle road will argue whether you can go without reading Heidegger's Being and
Time or not.
I'm an MA student in philosophy, and primarily interested in Phil. of Mind, so my
suggestions will draw from the assumption that we're looking for generally analytic,
contemporary philosophy; i.e., not foundational works, but ones that matter right now. I
guarantee that even these caveats will land me in an argument with someone, because given
the scope of your question, it's almost unavoidable.

The Full Plunge

If you want to be a philosopher, it's all pretty damn essential. Philosophy isn't a subject as
much it's a skill, and that skill is best sharpened on a specific topic. What you deem essential
will be tied to that topic.
You'll want a guide to terms and ideas, and though you should shop around, I can personally
recommend Julian Baggini's The Philosopher's Toolkit. If you're this serious, you can't go
wrong by reading at least the following:
John Rawl's A Theory of Justice (Ethics & Politics)
Paul Churchland's Matter and Consciousness (Mind)
Saul Kripke's Meaning and Necessity (Logic)
Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Science)
I list these because they're much more accessible, much more recent (20th century) works.
If you want to keep up with current analytic philosophy of any sort, these will give you a
solid path into most of the available subject matter. If you develop an interest in
epistemology from Kripke & Kuhn, a serious university-level course in symbolic logic and
probability is essential.
Now I can't speak for ethics or 'continental' philosophers, but you can follow up on the
recommendations that Baggini provides. He includes works and topics by Derrida and
Foucault, among others.

The Toe-Dip
Instead, if you're interested in philosophy, but don't know what to read, you'll still want to
narrow your field first of all. Again, philosophy is vast, so an introductory book like Simon
Blackburn's Think is a reasonable start, as would be (probably) Thomas Nagel's What Does
It All Mean?
Below are a few softer works that are philosophical, not strictly philosophy, but will help
expand your thinking about some classical topics in philosophy. Some people might list
them as 'essential' for, if not philosophy per se, at least understanding why philosophers do
what they do, or what people popularly think philosophy is all about:
Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning
Edwin Abbot's Flatland
Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy
Michel de Montaigne's Essays (any)
If after these, you're will to try something a little harder, I'm of the opinion
thateveryone ought to try reading Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra at least once in their
lives.

The Intellectualite
You may still want something else out of a list of 'essential' works in philosophy, which I try
not to judge people for, but which occurs anyway: namely, the ability to impress. Some
people aren't really looking for understanding philosophy, but only to pad their social
resume with important-sounding works.
If you want to be the sort of person that can, given a normal conversation, disrupt it with
"oh, well Kant wrote that...", these are the books you'll want to keep on your shelf for when
people drop in:
Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil
Georg Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit
Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics
Bertrand Russell's Principia Mathematica
Martin Heidegger's Being and Time
I'm certainly not saying you shouldn't read these, only that I, for one, am not capableof
reading them all in full, and anyone who has, and understands them all, I would consider
very, very smart. Which is the whole point, if this is your only goal.
As I'm not the sort of person to assume you're that sort of person, we can move on.

The Foundationalist
There's nothing wrong with more historical works, and I'd agree with many people when
they call these essential to understanding the roots and the history of philosophical
progress. But they've been done to death. These books aren't essential toread, as much as
it's essential to know they exist, their core concepts, and their place in the ongoing
discussion of the philosophical tradition.
It's in this group that you'll find St. Augustine, Aquinas, Spinoza, Berkeley, Descartes,
Leibniz, Hume, Locke, Kant, Hobbes, Rousseau, Mill, and so on. If this is what you're after,
you don't actually want a list of books; what you want is a introductory class in philosophy.
Go back to the Toe-Dip if you're not sure you're ready.
For this reason, I'm only going to list the one book that ought to be included, but whom
everyone seems to leave out of the standard curriculum: Pierre-Simon Laplace'sA
Philosophical Essay on Probabilities. It's a simple work of staggering import, in proper
philosophical tradition and with keen relevance today, touching on logic, knowledge, and
human nature.

The Minimalist
First of all, apologies if you've read this far. If this is the recommendation you were after,
you've probably stopped reading.
If you know nothing about philosophy, and all you wanted is one book which will tell you,
hands down, whether you're actually interested in philosophy - what it's like, what it about,
what it can do - then there's really only one book anyone needs to read, and which
is essential to grasp what philosophy is all about.
The most essential book of philosophy is Plato's Meno. In my not-so-humble opinion, it's
the wellspring of all philosophy really is, and strives to be.