diff --git a/cpplint.py b/cpplint.py
index 60b9c2bf25..04fd675767 100755
--- a/cpplint.py
+++ b/cpplint.py
@@ -6244,7 +6244,8 @@ def ProcessFile(filename, vlevel, extra_check_functions=[]):
                                         codecs.getwriter('utf8'),
                                         'replace').read().split('\n')
     else:
-      lines = codecs.open(filename, 'r', 'utf8', 'replace').read().split('\n')
+      with codecs.open(filename, 'r', 'utf8', 'replace') as stream:
+        lines = stream.read().split('\n')
 
     # Remove trailing '\r'.
     # The -1 accounts for the extra trailing blank line we get from split()